Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Death of a Member

Mr. Speaker: I regret to have to inform the House of the death of Sir Ronald McMillan Bell, Knight, QC, Member for Beaconsfield, and I desire, on behalf of the House, to express our sense of the loss we have sustained and our sympathy with the relatives of the hon. and learned Member.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE

India

Mr. Greville Janner: asked the Secretary of State for Trade whether he will use the occasion of the Festival of India to promote trade between India and the United Kingdom.

The Minister for Trade (Mr. Peter Rees): My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade has accepted an invitation to address a conference on the Indian market organised by the British and South Asian Trade Association to coincide with the opening of the festival.

Mr. Janner: The Festival of India presents a unique opportunity to improve political and cultural relations

between the two countries, especially because of the visit of Prime Minister Gandhi. Surely it is not enough for the Secretary of State for Trade to address a conference. Surely what should be done in these circumstances—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman is making proposals. He should ask a question.

Mr. Janner: Does the Minister accept that it must be in the interests of Britain as well as of India to correct the massive trade imbalance and to help India, especially in the light of the proportionate cut in the economic assistance that we provide?

Mr. Rees: I assure the House that our efforts to nourish both economic and political relations with India will certainly not be confined to the period of the festival, during which, of course, we shall watch and admire artifacts of the Indian civilisation. Our relationships with India are of considerable importance and the subject of continuous scrutiny and endeavours by not only my Department but others.

Mr. Jessel: Is not the main purpose of the Festival of India to foster music and the arts in the context of historic ties and warm relationships between India and the United Kingdom?

Mr. Rees: My hon. Friend has succinctly summed up the purpose of the festival.

Export Statistics

Mr. Kenneth Carlisle: asked the Secretary of State for Trade what information he has as to the proportion of exports from the United Kingdom which come from United Kingdom subsidiaries of foreign companies.

The Secretary of State for Trade (Mr. John Biffen): Foreign-controlled enterprises accounted for 29 per cent. of United Kingdom exports in 1979, the latest year for which data are available. The information is collected annually in the overseas transactions inquiry and was published in British Business on 3 July 1981.

Mr. Carlisle: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Does he agree that this shows that the subsidiaries of foreign multinationals in Britain are an essential and important part of our economy, providing many jobs? Does he also agree that they have been coming to this country increasingly now because, as a member of the Common Market, Britain provides them with access to a large market? Does he agree that if we left the Common Market the multinationals would cease to come, which would cost thousands of jobs in Britain?

Mr. Biffen: There is no doubt that these companies play a very important part in our national economy, accounting for 21 per cent. of output and 15 per cent. of employment, as well as the export figure to which I referred. I am certain that their success depends on Britain being part of an open trade agreement, including open trade with Europe.

Textiles and Clothing

Mr. Park: asked the Secretary of State for Trade whether agreement has yet been reached in the Council of Ministers on the level of global ceilings on imports of textiles and clothing from all sources, including multi-fibre arrangement signatories.

Mr. Peter Rees: The Council of Ministers agreed in principle on 25 February on global ceilings on imports into the Community of the eight most sensitive textile and clothing products.

Mr. Park: Is the Minister satisfied that the ceilings agreed in principle will be sufficient to prevent any further erosion of our textile industries?

Mr. Rees: I am satisfied that the overall package that will emerge when the bilateral agreements within the framework laid down are concluded will provide a much tougher regime and greater protection for the British textile industry.

Mr. Barry Jones: But just how tough is the mandate about which the Minister has boasted on the 1 per cent. growth? Will there not be a 4 to 5 per cent. growth in imports? Does that not give the lie to the Minister's claim?

Mr. Rees: I would be the last to boast of any achievements in this field. Knowing the sensitivity of the area, it would be extremely ill-judged for me to do so. The 1 per cent. growth rate relates to the most sensitive products. It is possible that there will be a higher growth rate in less sensitive products. We must wait and see. I can, however, assure the House that, in the most sensitive products, there will be a lower growth rate than that achieved in the last multi-fibre arrangement.

Mr. James Lamond: Has the Minister had any reaction from the textile industry to his announcement in the House on Friday?

Mr. Rees: I am happy to say that the only reaction has been an invitation to see the new headquarters of one of the associations, which I take to be a friendly invitation.

Mr. Woolmer: Does the Minister recognise the concern felt by producers and workers in the parts of the textile and clothing industry that come under categories two and three, dealing with such matters as suits, dresses, jackets, shirts and so on? Do the surge mechanism or the cutbacks on dominant suppliers relate to those categories? What action does he intend to take to safeguard what amounts to 50 per cent. of the industry?

Mr. Rees: No. Those categories are not covered. As the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, they are essentially non-sensitive categories. I appreciate that there are individual areas of concern. In those individual areas, the Government will endeavour to ensure that the growth rates are less than those negotiated under the previous multi-fibre arrangement. There are about 600 categories under those two groups. Many are areas where the textile industry would not press, I believe, for limited quotas.

European Community

Mr. Marlow: asked the Secretary of State for Trade what has been the balance of trade in manufactures with the rest of the European Economic Community for each of the last six months.

Mr. Biffen: In the last four months of 1981 there was a crude deficit of about £1, 400 million. With permission, I shall circulate the available monthly information for 1981 in the Official Report.

Mr. Marlow: My right hon. Friend says that in the last four months of 1981 there was a crude deficit of £1, 400 million. That is a very considerable amount. In view of the recovery and massive increase in productivity that is taking place in British industry, does my right hon. Friend see the prospect of this deficit reducing significantly? Or does he see it, like the Japanese deficit, as a matter about which hon. Members should be concerned?

Mr. Biffen: My hon. Friend is right. This is a deficit of great significance. Just under half of it is accounted for by road vehicles. I would not care to make an assessment of whether there will be a reduced deficit in the year in prospect.

Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler: What is the right hon. Gentleman's latest estimate of the likely loss of exports and jobs if Britain were to withdraw from the European Economic Community?

Mr. Biffen: That would depend almost entirely on what replacement arrangements were made.

Sir Anthony Meyer: Is not the deficit almost exactly the same as the combined deficit with the United States, Japan and EFTA? Do not these three together take a smaller proportion of our exports that the EEC as a whole? Is it not further a fact that our export-import ratio with the EEC is still more favourable than that with the United States, and about three times as favourable as that with Japan?

Mr. Biffen: Broadly speaking, I agree with those propositions, but I am not quite certain that I could validate the individual statistics that my hon. Friend has quoted.

Following is the information:

CRUDE BALANCE OF UNITED KINGDOM TRADE IN MANUFACTURES WITH THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY


1981
£ million, OTS basis


January
-18


February
-144


September
-357


October*
-164


November
-515


December
-336


Source: Overseas Trade Statistics of the United Kingdom.


Notes: Figures for March to August are not yet available due to the Civil Service pay dispute.


*The October export figures are inflated as a result in the system of documenting exports.

British Airways

Mr. Neubert: asked the Secretary of State for Trade whether he will make a further statement on measures taken by British Airways to improve its financial position.

Mr. Robert Atkins: asked the Secretary of State for Trade if he will make a further statement about the measures taken by British Airways to improve its future financial position, referred to in the Under-Secretary's reply on 4 February, Official Report,  column 171.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade (Mr. Iain Sproat): British Airways made a pre-tax loss of £141 million last year and is expected to make a further substantial loss in the current financial year. Its debts are fast approaching the £1 billion mark. It is clearly the management's responsibility, therefore, to take strong measures to improve its financial performance as quickly as possible. I welcome the determination of Sir John King and the British Airways board to take such measures.

Mr. Neubert: In the interests of fair competition in civil aviation, will my hon. Friend confirm that, despite British Airways' rejection of the description that it is State subsidised, it has received a wide variety of support from the taxpayer over the years? Is it not true that if British Airways were not a nationalised airline, but a private sector company, it would have been declared bankrupt long ago?

Mr. Sproat: In the last part of his question my hon. Friend certainly puts the issue rather brutally, but, many people might think, accurately. It is absolutely right that the House should be aware of the massive support that British Airways has received from the taxpayer by means of the national loans fund and public dividend capital, amounting to £10 million a year, injected over the last five years, on which it has not recently been repaying its dividend. Its private sector debts are guaranteed by the Treasury, which means a preferential rate of interest. It also benefited at no cost to itself from the exchange cover scheme when that scheme was in operation. It has had £160 million of PDC written off. Its Concorde support programme was funded by the Government. There are many other points that I would raise if time were available.

Mr. John Smith: Will the Under-Secretary of State take an early opportunity to withdraw the statement he has made on a number of occasions that British Airways has been subsidised? What were the subsidies? Is he aware that he gave an answer only last Friday indicating that over the last five years British airways had paid £100 million

to the taxpayer and received £50 million back. That means that the taxpayer is £50 million up if one takes out of the calculation Concorde, which is a separate operation?

Mr. Sproat: I thought I had made it clear even to the right hon. Gentleman that British Airways has benefited from taxpayers' support by at least ten separate means. If preferential rates of interest from the national loans fund and preferential rates from any private sector borrowing are not benefits, I cannot think what are. In addition, it has benefited from the exchange cover scheme. As for subsidy, it had £160 million written off. Furthermore, Concorde was subsidised by the taxpayer to the tune of £10 million every year. This also existed under the Labour Government.

Mr. John Smith: Does the Under-Secretary of State realise that it is wrong to try to imply that the losses on Concorde result from any commercial mismanagement on the part of British Airways? Concorde is a national project subsidised in France and in Britain. It is the decisions of Governments that have led to subsidies and to losses. Does the Under-Secretary understand that one of the obligations of a Minister of the Crown is to play fair with the industries that he is supposed to support?

Mr. Sproat: I am only too well aware of my duty to play fair. It is precisely because I am playing fair to the taxpayer that I emphasise the massive support that the taxpayer has given to British Airways over the years. I am extremely surprised that the right hon. Gentleman is apparently not aware that British Airways is claiming to make a profit out of Concorde at the moment, that it thinks it will do so in the years to come, and that it is extremely keen to keep it.

Mr. Adley: On the matter of improving the financial position of British Airways, will my hon. Friend confirm that the baggage handling dispute has improved the service to British Airways' customers and has also reduced the pilferage from those customers—

Mr. Les Huckfield: Absolute rubbish.

Mr. Adley: If this is absolute rubbish, will my hon. Friend say so? If it is true, however, will he encourage British Airways to draw the obvious conclusion and
perform accordingly?

Mr. Sproat: I shall encourage British Airways to draw the correct conclusions from what is happening. The manner in which other members of British Airways are acting in this crisis is a splendid tribute to the spirit that still exists within the airline.

Mr. Les Huckfield: Is the Under-Secretary of State aware that the dispute is the fault of British Airways, which will not respond to an ACAS initiative to engage in negotiations with the Transport and General Workers Union? Is he also aware that this is a dispute in which British Airways has locked out its own staff despite guarantees from the executive council of the Transport and General Workers Union to meet some of the negotiating deadlines? If there is a deterioration in British Airways finances as a result of this dispute, it is its own fault.

Mr. Sproat: I certainly do not confirm what the hon. Gentleman says. The details of the dispute and how it is handled must remain matters for the British Airways board.

Cars (Imports)

Mr. Edwin Wainwright: asked the Secretary of State for Trade how many British cars have been privately imported during the last 12 months.

Mr. Sheerman: asked the Secretary of State for Trade what proportion of privately imported vehicles is manufactured overseas.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade (Mr. Reginald Eyre): Separate statistics of new cars imported personally, whether of United Kingdom or foreign manufacture, are not available.

Mr. Wainwright: I do not know whether I dare thank the Minister for that reply. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, in addition to the import of cars for personal use, there is a strong rumour that British companies will be allowed to buy their car fleets abroad? If that is so, does not the hon. Gentleman agree that it will greatly harm the motor industry in Britain? What will he do about it?

Mr. Eyre: The hon. Gentleman should not jump to rash conclusions on such matters.

Mr. Stokes: In general, would it not benefit British customers and, in the long run, producers, if cars had to be made as cheaply in Britain as they are on the Continent?

Mr. Eyre: My hon. Friend has emphasised a tremendously important point. It would not be in the long-term interests of anyone in Britain if our motor car industry did not strive to become efficient and competitive in full world market terms at the earliest possible moment.

Mr. John Fraser: If the Government believe that the retail margins on sales of new cars are too high, might it not be better to refer that to the Director General of Fair Trading under the Competition Act than to make it easier for foreign-based people such as civil servants, defence personnel and—according to The Times—even Ministers to bring in cheaper foreign cars?

Mr. Eyre: The hon. Gentleman has begun from the wrong point. Pricing decisions are for the commercial judgments of manufacturers and dealers, acting within the requirements of the competition rules of the United Kingdom and the EEC.

"The Sunday Times"

Mr. Norman Atkinson: asked the Secretary of State for Trade if he will publish his reply to the letter from the National Union of Journalists' chapel at The Sunday Times relating to the infringement of editorial independence.

Mr. Biffen: I have placed a copy of this correspondence in the Library of the House. It is for the independent national directors to consider allegations that editorial independence has been infringed.

Mr. Atkinson: In regard to the company articles and the likes, does the Secretary of State agree that Rupert Murdoch attempted to find a way round the original agreements, but was caught? If the right hon. Gentleman had his time again, would he not design the articles quite differently, and would he have taken different action in referring the matter to the commission?

Mr. Biffen: The hon. Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Dubs) has tabled question No. 22 about the titles, and

I hope to reach and answer it. The answer to the second part of the hon. Gentleman's question is "No". The answer to the third part is that I do not think that I would depart from my judgment.

Mr. Aitken: Does my right hon. Friend accept that an element of make-believe surrounds the so-called guarantees of editorial independence? In practical terms, they are now unenforceable. Might it not be much more realistic for my right hon. Friend to accept that Times Newspapers Ltd. has a proprietor who, from time to time, may decide to fire an editor pour encourager les autres, and that there is nothing that the Government can do about it?

Mr. Biffen: I do not agree that there is an element of make-believe in the articles. I understand that the question refers to the dismissal not of an editor, but of journalists. If the editor thought that his independence had been infringed, he could have appealed to the independent national directors.

Mr. John Smith: Reverting to the episode to which my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) referred, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that Mr. Rupert Murdoch failed to act within the spirit of the agreement when he attempted to transfer the titles without any reference to the independent national directors? What decision, if any, has been made about the future of the titles? In the light of recent experience, are not further safeguards necessary?

Mr. Biffen: I do not wish to be in any way obstructive, but I owe it as a courtesy to the hon. Member for Battersea, South—who has tabled a question specifically on the transfer of titles—to deal with the matter later.

Mr. Squire: Given the importance that all hon. Members attach to editorial independence, will my right hon. Friend speculate on the degree of independence enjoyed by other newspapers, such as Militant?

Mr. Biffen: Not just now.

Mr. Winnick: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that events seem to justify some of the fears that were expressed when Mr. Rupert Murdoch took over Times Newspapers Ltd? If The Times is closed, what approach will the Government take towards ensuring that it reappears in the near future?

Mr. Biffen: I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman's first observation. Clearly both sides of the House would like The Times to continue as a major journalistic force. However, it must do so on an economic basis.

Tourist Industry

Mr. Dormand: asked the Secretary of State for Trade if he is satisfied with the operation of the law relating to the regulation of the tourist industry ; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Sproat: The principal measure is the Development of Tourism Act 1969, the main provisions of which govern the activities of the British Tourist Authority and the English, Scottish and Wales tourist boards; in general I am satisfied with its operation.

Mr. Dormand: Is the Minister satisfied that present legislation is effective enough for debacles such as the collapse of Laker Airways? Is the law adequate to


reinforce the action being taken by organisations such as the Association of British Travel Agents, which I understand are doing their best in difficult circumstances? Perhaps they would like some legislative reinforcement from the Government.

Mr. Sproat: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his words of praise about the action that is being taken. The Government passed legislation so that the air travel reserve fund can back up with the necessary funds any shortcomings that may result from the bond scheme, which is in operation in the first instance.

Sir Albert Costain: Does my hon. Friend appreciate that while hotels can be built with the help of grants in industrial development areas where they are not necessary, they cannot similarly be built in non-development areas, such as the South-East, where they are necessary? Will he consider the regulations in that respect?

Mr. Sproat: I should certainly be glad to look at those regulations.

Laker Airways

Mr. Ginsburg: asked the Secretary of State for Trade what is the position of the route licences granted to Laker Airways and held by it prior to the receivership; and if he will make a statement about its current status.

Mr. Sproat: The Civil Aviation Authority has given notice to Laker Airways that its air transport licences are suspended. However, whether the suspension takes effect and, if so, the timing of it, depends on whether the airline appeals to my right hon. Friend and on the outcome of any appeal. I understand that the authority has also notified the airline that it intends to publish particulars of a proposal to revoke the licences; this proposal may be the subject of a hearing and subsequently of an appeal to my right hon. Friend, so it would not be appropriate for me to comment further.

Mr. Ginsburg: No doubt the Minister recalls that on 9 February the Prime Minister spoke about the possibility of de-suspension. Will he confirm that such de-suspension could not take place unless the airline were sold in its entirety as a going concern, with due consideration for the outstanding debts?

Mr. Sproat: The hon. Gentleman has asked an extremely intricate question. I cannot answer "Yes", but I can say that this matter is for the Civil Aviation Authority to decide. It will, of course, take account of the financial state of the company, or any reconstructed company. In addition, it is taking advice on whether the suggested reconstructed company—Brenpage—qualifies under regulation 17.

Mr. McCrindle: Given that the Minister's appellate functions require him to be somewhat circumspect when replying to my question, can he at least place on record the Government's hope that, after all the inquiries, two British airlines will still fly both to Los Angeles and New York?

Mr. Sproat: It would be improper for me to say more than to remind my hon. Friend that an application from British Caledonian and, presumably, from any reconstructed Laker Airways—if it is reconstructed—to fly to Los

Angeles would be the subject of an appeal to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Therefore, I should not comment.

Mr. Hoyle: Will the Minister ensure that a pirate like Laker does not fly again? Sir Freddie Laker paid less in salaries than other airlines and had a registered office in Jersey so that his employees did not have the benefit of going to industrial tribunals. Indeed, Sir Freddie Laker prevented his employees from joining a trade union. The result has been that all of them have lost their employment. Will the Minister protect people in future?

Mr. Sproat: It is a shocking abuse of the House that the hon. Gentleman uses the privilege of the Green Benches to call Sir Freddie Laker a pirate. The hon. Gentleman said that Jersey was being used as a way to get round section 15 of the Act, to which I presume he was referring. As usual, the hon. Gentleman is totally inaccurate.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Sir Freddie Laker did a good deal of good work in the early days, but is the Minister aware that the worst feature of the misfortunes was that so many people who were booked on scheduled flights lost their money? Therefore, is there not a need for cover by the air travel reserve fund, bonding or insurance to make sure that if an airline goes bust—as British Airways could now. if it were not nationalised—such people are protected?

Mr. Sproat: With regard to my hon. Friend's point about scheduled passengers, I ask him to wait until question 15 is answered, when I hope he will receive a satisfactory answer.

Mr. John Smith: Does the Under-Secretary agree, as a matter of general civil aviation licensing policy, that it would not be proper for an airline operator to be able to walk away from hundreds of millions of pounds of debt at home and abroad and then to start operating a licence again without having made any arrangements to pay those debts?

Mr. Sproat: The right hon. Gentleman is putting a hypothetical question to which it would not be proper for me to give an answer. With regard to the laws of receivership, it is the duty of the receiver to get as much money as possible for the creditors. That is what Mr. Mackey and his associates are doing.

European Community (Motor Vehicles)

Mr. Leighton: asked the Secretary of State for Trade what was the balance of trade in motor vehicles with the European Economic Community Six in 1970 and for the latest available year.

Mr. Biffen: Our crude deficit of trade in motor vehicles with the six original members of the European Community was £11 million in 1970 and £1, 290 million in 1980.

Mr. Leighton: From those horrendous figures, is it not undeniable, despite what Lord Stokes told us would happen at the time, that Common Market membership has proved disastrous and catastrophic to the British motor vehicle industry? We negotiate limits on Japanese imports, which will allow in more EEC imports, but will the Minister accept any responsibility for the existence of the British motor industry? We are investing in the motor industry and seeking to build it up, but would it not be wise


to negotiate import ceilings on EEC imports in the same way as we do with Japan, regardless of what the Treaty of Rome says?

Mr. Biffen: I note the hon. Gentleman's last comment. If he is advocating that Britain should be outside the Community operating a tariff barrier against it, that would lead to massive industrial dislocation. On the hon. Gentleman's first point, those figures show an enormous increase, but they derive, in part at least, from the policies of companies, such as Ford and Vauxhall, which have Continental-wide manufacturing strategies which, in consequence, lead to high levels of imports, particularly from Belgium and Germany.

Mr. John H. Osborn: Is it not a fact that harmonisation and the role of non-tariff barriers has not gone far enough, particularly in the field of taxation? Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that motor manufacturers and motor agents are disturbed that British cars can be bought more cheaply in other EEC countries? This certainly appears to be the case with cars manufactured in these countries which have similar costs of manufacture.

Mr. Biffen: My hon. Friend's second point was dealt with by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary in answer to a question by the hon. Member for Dearne Valley (Mr. Wainwright). It remains the Government's policy to secure as far as possible the mutually agreed dismantling of non-tariff barriers throughout the Community.

Mr. Jay: Do not the figures show that a large part of the huge trade that we are now supposed to be doing with the Common Market consists of unnecessary car imports that are damaging British industry and employment?

Mr. Biffen: Only someone with a monumentally narrow mind could describe as undesirable a car that had been manufactured in Italy, France or Germany. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to be an anti-Marketeer, he should not be a puritan at the same time.

Mr. Archie Hamilton: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the figures also show how desperately uncompetitive the British car manufacturing industry has been compared with the European car industry?

Mr. Biffen: Yes, Sir.

Malaysia

Mr. Teddy Taylor: asked the Secretary of State for Trade what steps he is taking to promote the expansion of trade with Malaysia; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Peter Rees: During his recent visit to Malaysia my right hon. and noble Friend the Foreign Secretary discussed fully with the Prime Minister of Malaysia the problems for bilateral trade that have arisen. As my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal reported to the House on 11 February, we hope that this meeting will be the beginning of a better understanding.

Mr. Taylor: Will my hon. and learned Friend redouble his efforts to try to find out why relations are so sour between Britain and that responsible, democractic, strong and free country, which has always been a supermarket for Britain's exports? In particular, will he seek to influence the policies of some of his colleagues to ensure that we do not treat some of our loyal Commonwealth friends in the

same way as people coming from East Germany and China, while giving massive preference in fees and health care to all members of the EEC?

Mr. Rees: I assure the House that my right hon. and noble Friend has explored the question of Anglo-Malaysian relations with the Prime Minister of Malaysia. I should say British-Malaysian relations as it is St. David's day. Naturally, the high commission is in constant touch with the Malaysian Government. It is a matter of concern to us that there is reported to be some discrimination against British bids in the public sector in Malaysia. I assure the House that I am not aware of any discriminatory measures against Malaysia or its residents by the present Administration.

Mr. Durant: Will my hon. and learned Friend seriously consider sending the Minister for Industry and Information Technology to Malaysia, which has a ripe market for such technology and is looking to this country to assist it?

Mr. Rees: I am sure that my hon. Friend will take note of my hon. Friend's comments. It is for him to assess the opportunities in the light of public statements that have been emanating from Malaysia.

Japan

Mr. Hoyle: asked the Secretary of State for Trade what steps he is taking to redress the imbalance of trade with Japan.

Mr. Biffen: The Government—along with the rest of the European Community—are continuing to press the Japanese to open their market to our manufactured goods and to limit exports in sensitive sectors. The Japanese Government have recently announced a number of measures to improve access for imports from overseas, but I made it clear in Tokyo last month that, while I welcomed these steps, much more would need to be done.

Mr. Hoyle: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that he has perhaps made a mistake in his softly-softly approach, particularly as there is an adverse trade balance of more than £1 billion? The Japanese will always parley while they take the barley. Does the right hon. Gentleman further agree that it would be best to say to the Japanese that we will import as much from them as we export to them—no more, no less?

Mr. Biffen: That would be a dubious proposition from a country that has so much to gain from multilateral trade. The only approach that has any likelihood of success is one that links the interests of the West European nations and the United States. That will remain the centrepiece of our approach

Mr. Teddy Taylor: As our deficit in manufactures with Germany last year was twice what it was with Japan—£2 billion—what is the logic of insisting on voluntary restraint on Japanese imports but not on German imports?

Mr. Biffen: There are three reasons. First, Germany does not have the massive balance of payments surplus that is causing difficulty to other countries. Secondly, Germany has an open market for British goods. If we have the competitive skills, we can sell on that market. Thirdly, German penetration of the United Kingdom market is not based on a narrow range of items.

Mr. Campbell-Savours: Has not the Director General of Fair Trading, under section 2 of the Competition Act 1980, the power to prevent the distribution of dumped goods where they distort trade and where such action can be construed as an anti-competitive practice? Will the Secretary of State suggest to the Director General that he should use those powers and accept applications by British manufacturers of, say, footwear, who are in competition with Japan, to restrict the flow of such products to British markets?

Mr. Biffen: I shall look into that important, though somewhat. esoteric, point and write to the hon. Gentleman when I have concluded my investigations.

Sir Anthony Meyer: In view of the marked difference of opinion among anti-Marketeers as to whether Japan is more to blame than the EEC, is it not safer to cling to the conclusion that we need open trading and that there is no substitute for that for a country, such as ours, that depends on exports?

Mr. Biffen: Yes. I have a great belief in open trading, although it is qualified in certain circumstances, as with the MFA and, indeed, trade with Japan.

Mr. Leighton: Is the Minister sure that restricting Japanese imports is not a puritan attitude?

Mr. Biffen: Sound sense.

Hire Purchase Act 1964

Mr. Heddle: asked the Secretary of State for Trade whether he is satisfied with the working of the Hire-Puchase Act 1964.

Mr. Eyre: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Heddle: Does my hon. Friend agree that someone who might buy a secondhand product, for example, a car, which is subject to a leasing agreement does not have the same protection under the Hire-Purchase Act 1964 as someone who might innocently purchase a secondhand car that might be subject to a hire-purchase agreement? If so, does he further agree that thousands of people could be driving cars which, for reasons best known to others, they do not own? Will my hon. Friend bring forward legislation to amend the apparent anomaly in the Act?

Mr. Eyre: I share my hon. Friend's concern about the innocent private buyer. I am grateful to him for his proposed amendment to the Supply of Goods and Services Bill. I am urgently considering a number of legal and other aspects of the matter, particularly whether the amendment is within the scope of the Bill. I shall be in touch with him on all these matters at the earliest possible moment.

Mr. John Fraser: Does the Minister agree that there is no possible reason of principle why the same protection should not apply to a consumer of a product on a leasing agreement as to a consumer of a product on a hire-purchase agreement? Would the Government, as the first single piece of primary consumer legislation for which they have been responsible in the past 34 months, amend the Act?

Mr. Eyre: I have a great deal of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's feelings. I agree that the innocent private purchaser is likely to be in a weaker position to bear a loss than a finance company. If the hon. Gentleman

would bear with me while we consider the legal aspects, and particularly whether the matter comes within the scope of the Bill, I shall do my best to be helpful.

Air Travellers (Travel Insurance)

Mr. McCrindle: asked the Secretary of State for Trade if he has any proposals to extend protection of air travellers, other than those on package tours, in the event of the failure of the airline.

Mr. John Fraser: asked the Secretary of State for Trade if he will introduce legislation to provide protection for air travellers who buy tickets on airlines which become insolvent.

Mr. Sproat: At present I have no plans to introduce legislation on these lines. This is a complicated and difficult problem involving as it does an international industry. However, as I am sure my hon. Friends will be pleased to hear, I have instructed my officials to review the position to see whether there is any practicable way in which protection could be given to the scheduled air traveller.

Mr. McCrindle: I welcome that move. Will my hon. Friend confirm that among the matters that his officials might take into consideration is the possibility of a small levy on each scheduled airline ticket to enable a fund to be created comparable with the one that was used in the recent Laker situation to protect people who have gone abroad on package tours? Would it also be within their orbit to take account of the possibility of a foreign airline failing, tickets for which having been purchased in the United Kingdom?

Mr. Sproat: I thank my hon. Friend for his welcome for the important review. I assure him that all those points will be covered within it.

Mr. Fraser: Does the Minister agree that it is not at all difficult to make such provision? Would it not be possible to introduce a bonding scheme along the lines of that operated by ABTA? Has the promise that Tiny Rowland made on television to meet the costs of scheduled air travellers been fulfilled?

Mr. Sproat: The promise made by Mr. Roland Rowland was that he would pay the costs of scheduled tavellers if and when he was in charge of the air company. Perhaps I might ask the hon. Gentleman why the Labour Government did not introduce a bonding scheme. If he is baffled, I can give him the answer. It is an extremely difficult and intricate matter, involving foreign airlines. We shall certainly look at all the intricacies and difficulties in our review.

Mr. Waller: When making a booking no air taveller is likely to assume that he might lose his money as a result of a company's bankruptcy, so should not travel agents at least make the position clear to people booking tickets and provide them with an opportunity to take out insurance

Mr. Sproat: That is an interesting suggestion. No doubt representatives of the travel associations will take it to heart.

Mr. Ginsburg: Will the Minister reconsider what he said to the hon. Member for Norwood, (Mr. Fraser), as many hon. Members may feel that Mr. Rowland's promise was unqualified?

Mr. Sproat: As I understand it, Mr. Rowland was saying what he would do were he ever in a position to be influential in the airline.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Will my hon. Friend ask his officials to look at the air travel reserve fund, which contains a large amount of money, to see whether some of that can be used to compensate people who, although not scheduled passengers, booked hotels through Laker as well?

Mr. Sproat: The fund contains about £18·5 million. I shall have my officials look at the matter. There is a difficulty in making people who paid a surcharge when they were going on a package holiday pay for the problems of those going on scheduled tickets.

Laker Airways

Mr. Campbell-Savours: asked the Secretary of State for Trade whether problems faced by the travelling public following the collapse of Laker Airways have yet been resolved; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Sproat: Laker Airways scheduled passengers overseas were all brought home successfully, thanks to the generous efforts of other carriers. The bonding arrangements, provided by Laker's tour operating companies as a condition of their holding air travel organisers' licences, made available funds to bring home inclusive package tour customers from this country who were already abroad, and I understand that all these people have been repatriated. Together with the air travel reserve fund, the bonds should ensure that no one who has booked an inclusive air package holiday or advanced booking charter with one of the Laker tour operating subsidiaries loses financially. Unfortunately, scheduled ticket holders who had not yet made their journey with Laker Airways are unsecured creditors of the company and as such should contact the receiver if they have not already done so.

Mr. Campbell-Savours: The hon. Gentleman said "should". Is he aware that many Spanish hoteliers have said that they intend to sell their Laker bed contracts, despite the fact that Laker Tours and Arrowsmith have been purchased by Saga and Greenall Whitley? Will the hon. Gentleman seek assurance from the two companies that every person travelling this year through them, particularly to Spain, has guaranteed accommodation, despite the threats of Spanish hoteliers?

Mr. Sproat: I am sure that the two companies will need no urging from me to do their best for all who booked through Laker subsidiaries. It is entirely a commercial matter.

Mr. Neubert: When my hon. Friend is considering whether protection should be afforded to scheduled airline passengers, will he bear in mind that the air travel reserve fund was set up by the Labour Government by inposing a levy on package holiday passengers to bail out other package holiday passengers and that it would be airway robbery if, many years later, the money were to be used to refund to people the cost of booking on a schedule airline?

Mr. Sproat: My hon. Friend has put the matter fairly. We have the air travel reserve fund because of the extremely—I must watch my adjectives—ill-judged action by the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn), who set the whole thing in motion to begin with.

Mr. Clinton Davis: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that some of the problems for passengers and other creditors arose because Sir Freddie Laker made misleading statements about the viability of his enterprise three days before the collapse? He said that £60 million had been secured to rescue the company and that his confidence was rising ever higher. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that those statements were justified?

Mr. Sproat: I have no doubt that when Sir Frederick made those statements he was under the impression that they were correct. What is more, when this matter was reported in The Guardian and the Daily Mail the following day, the reports were put side by side with statements from bankers saying that Sir Frederick had probably jumped the gun.

Oral Answers to Questions — OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

United Nations Development Programme

Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler: asked the Lord Privy Seal what contribution Her Majesty's Government have pledged to the United Nations development programme for 1982; and if he will express this in terms of $ American per head of the population of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Ioan Evans: asked the Lord Privy Seal what contribution the United Kingdom has pledged to the United Nations development programme for 1982; and if he will express this as a percentage of gross national product.

The Minister for Overseas Development (Mr. Neil Marten): We intend to contribute £18·5 million to the United Nations development programme in 1982, subject to parliamentary approval. Our contribution to UNDP is expressed in £ sterling, and on the basis of recent exchange rates our contribution is equivalent to $0·60 per head of United Kingdom population.
The latest published money GNP figure is for 1980. Our contribution for that year represented 0·007 per cent of our GNP.

Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler: As Norway's contribution to the fund, expressed in dollars per head, is 20 times that of the United Kingdom, and in view of the right hon. Gentleman's repeated commitment to giving priority to the poorest countries in the overseas aid programme, why is he giving so little support to the one international institution that shares that priority?

Mr. Marten: I do not regard £18·5 million as "little support". Britain's contribution is the seventh largest of those so far announced in 1982. Britain has always been among the 10 largest contributors to the programme. We regard the UNDP as an efficient and effective organisation.

Mr. Evans: Does the Government's contribution live up to the pledges given at Cancun by the Prime Minister to deal with the problems of world poverty? Is it because the Americans have reduced their contribution that we are reducing ours? Would we not help the poor of the world far better by increasing our contribution to the UNDP than by spending £10 billion on Trident?

Mr. Marten: I do not regard the last part of that question as relevant. Our contribution to the UNDP is voluntary. It is not, therefore, affected by that of the United States.

Mr. Archie Hamilton: Is my right hon. Friend content that aid from the British taxpayer to Third world countries is by-passing the Governments of those countries, bearing in mind that the abject poverty in which many people live in those countries is caused by the corruption and Socialist policies of those Governments?

Mr. Marten: I take note of the point made by my hon. Friend.

Mr. Pavitt: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that these figures are less than the 1969 Lester Pearson target, which was generally accepted at that time? How is he getting on in the struggle in the Cabinet for funds for all spending Departments? Shall we be able to reach at least some part of the North-South settlement figures for next year?

Mr. Marten: The figures mentioned in the answer are not the 0·7 of the Pearson report, but, like the Labour Government, we hope to achieve that figure when our economy is right. If the hon. Gentleman and the Labour Party can help in getting the economy right, we should be grateful.

Sir Frederick Burden: It is important to recognise the amounts of money sent to backward countries, but can my right hon. Friend assure us that when machinery is sent—that is surely essential for developing countries—there are people there who can put it to proper use instead of allowing it to rust on the quays and in other places?

Mr. Marten: I do not know what happened previously, but we now try to see that if a developing country is receiving machinery, particularly complicated machinery, there are people trained to handle it once it is in place.

Mr. Jessel: Was not the reference by the hon. Member for Norfolk, North-West (Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler) to Norway irrelevant and foolish, in that our Norwegian friends are able to produce 10 times as much oil a year as is required for their needs and are therefore much richer per head of population and able to give much more in development aid?

Mr. Marten: Many of these comparisons are irrelevant, as my hon. Friend has suggested.

Mr. James Lamond: Why did the Minister say that it was not relevant to contrast our defence expenditure with overseas aid when all the Governments who attended the United Nations special session in 1978 felt that they could tie the two together and promised to cut the arms bill and use the money to help the Third world?

Mr. Marten: If we do not have a proper defence policy, the consequence might be that we do not have a proper aid policy.

International Development Association

Mr. Nelson: asked the Lord Privy Seal what is the value of the United Kingdom's contribution to the sixth replenishment of the International Development Association of the World Bank; and to what extent this

will finance the export of British goods and services for schemes backed by the International Development Association.

Mr. Neil Marten: The value of the United Kingdom's contribution to the sixth replenishment of the International Development Association is £555 million.
There is no formal link between contributions to multilateral agencies and procurement return, and it is impossible to predict what success British firms will have in international competitive tendering. Their past average achievement overall for IDA projects has been about 14 per cent. of total foreign procurement.

Mr. Nelson: Will not that substantial and welcome funding go directly to assist the poorest nations of the world? Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be much easier to obtain support for our substantial funding of the IDA if it were seen to be of direct benefit to British industry and trade? Is there no way in which our contributions to the IDA can be tied to trade with contributing countries?

Mr. Marten: I am afraid not. It is a question of industrialists going to foreign countries and doing their best to obtain contracts. We have recently appointed a new commercial officer post in the British embassy in Washington to assist business men to obtain these contracts.

Mr. McElhone: Will the Minister answer the most important question on the IDA that he failed to answer in the debate on 11 February, namely, why was it necessary for the Government to copy the savage cut of 25 per cent. in IDA funding by the United States? Would it not be better to copy Norway, Sweden and Denmark and refuse to make any cuts which would have a disastrous effect on orders and jobs in this country and in the poorest countries of the Third world?

Mr. Marten: The answer is that we and other major donors are concerned to preserve the principle of burden-sharing—presumably Norway is not—basic to the IDA six replenishment, whereby IDA commits contributions pro rata to the unqualified commitments of any member responsible for a shortfall if that member is contributing more than 20 per cent. of the replenishment.

Mr. Welsh: Does the Minister agree that even 14 per cent. could create a tremendous amount of employment in Great Britain? Seen even from a selfish angle—and parliamentarians may do that—would it not be as well to carry on the loan agreed by the 1980 Parliament, if only for the sake of creating employment in this country? Would that be a reasonable approach to the subject?

Mr. Marten: It might be, but we have agreed to contribute £555 million.

India

Mr. Sever: asked the Lord Privy Seal when he expects to be able to give a figure for total United Kingdom aid to India for 1981–82.

Mr. Neil Marten: The final figure will be available late in 1982, but I expect to have a provisional figure by May.

Mr. Sever: The Minister will be aware of the interest that the House has shown in the aid programme to India.


Will he undertake to do everything within his power to convince his Cabinet colleagues that it is necessary to maintain the strongest possible aid programme to one of the most disadvantaged countries in the world?

Mr. Neil Marten: We do that within the resources available.

Sir John Biggs-Davison: In view of the unprincipled propaganda against the Government's aid policy, will my right hon. Friend consider giving more publicity to the

Christian missions and other bodies that give generous aid to India and other countries? Is not the advantage of aid through private enterprise, private endeavour and charitable effort that less money finds its way into bureacratic channels and into the Swiss bank accounts of dictators?

Mr. Marten: The question relates to India. Therefore, dictatorships and Swiss bank accounts do not come into it. I pay tribute to the voluntary agencies mentioned by my hon. Friend. We are increasing our subscriptions to them.

Personal Statement

The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Nicholas Edwards): I wish to make a personal statement about an incident that occurred during a series of interventions by the right hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Jones) in the course of the winding-up speech by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Wales at the end of the debate on Welsh affairs last Thursday.
I should like to apologise to the right hon. Member for Rhondda for suggesting that he might have been drinking, a suggestion which was unjustified and which, of course, I withdraw.
I should also like to apologise to you, Mr. Speaker, for making your task more difficult by a remark from a sedentary position that was out of order.
I hope that St. David's Day is an appropriate moment to make amends.

Cricketers (South African Tour)

Mr. Gerald Kaufman: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House. under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
the visit to South Africa of a group of cricketers being describe d as an 'England Eleven' .
The matter is specific because 12 English cricketers, who are already becoming known as "the Dirty Dozen", have decided, in defiance of the advice of the Test and County Cricket Board, to tour South Africa and play so-called Test matches, describing themselves for this purpose as "the English team".
It is important because these men are placing in doubt the forthcoming tours of Britain by Indian and Pakistani cricket teams, are jeopardising this country's place in international Test cricket, and could affect the future of both the Commonwealth and the Olympic Games.
The matter requires urgent consideration because the tour is due to begin on Thursday, which leaves very little time for the Government to fulfil their obligations under the Gleneagles agreement by taking every practical step to discourage a group of men who, by giving aid and comfort to what the Gleneagles agreement describes as "the abomination of apartheid", are selling themselves for blood-covered Krugerrands.

Mr. John Carlisle: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) gave me notice before 12 o'clock midday that he would seek leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he thinks should have urgent consideration, namely,
the visit to South Africa of a group of cricketers being described as 'an England Eleven' .
I listened, as the House did, with concern to what the right hon. Gentleman said.
The House knows that it has instructed me to take into account the several factors set out in the standing order but to give no reasons for my decision.
The fact that I am ruling that the right hon. Gentleman's submission does not fall within the provisions of the Standing Order in no way minimises my belief that he has raised an important matter, but I cannot agree that his application should be submitted to the House.

Mr. John Carlisle: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not out of order that such a scurrilous attack should be made by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman)?

Mr. Speaker: If it had been out of order, I should have intervened.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS &c.

Mr. Speaker: I shall put the first two motions together.

Ordered, 
That the draft Representation of the People (Variation of Limits of Candidates' Election Expenses) Order 1982 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.
That the draft Filament Lamps for Vehicles (Safety) Regulations 1982 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.—[Mr. Mather.]

RESERVE FORCES BILL [LORDS]

Ordered, 
That the Reserve Forces Bill [Lords] be referred to a Second Reading Committee.—[Mr. Mather.]

Orders of the Day — Travel Concessions (London) Bill

Mr. Speaker: I have not selected the proposed Instruction.

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. BERNARD WEATHERILL in the Chair.]

Clauses 1 and 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

The Chairman of Ways and Means: I have selected only new clause 2 for debate.

Mr. Douglas Jay: On a point of order, Mr. Weatherill. Is it not proposed to call new clause 1, in my name and those of several of my hon. Friends? It raises a number of issues which are central to the Bill. I wonder whether you could give me some guidance on your treatment of that new clause?

The Chairman: The right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) knows that it is never the practice of the Chair to explain why amendments have not been selected, but I may say to him that his clause is outside the scope of the Bill and was not selected for that reason.

New Clause 2

DUTIES OF THE GREATER LONDON COUNCIL TO FURTHER THE GENERAL TRANSPORT INTERESTS OF THE ELDERLY AND DISABLED

Without prejudice to any other duty imposed upon them by this Act or any other Act, and in particular to their duty under section 84(1) of the Act 1967, it shall be the general duty of the Greater London Council (hereinafter in this Act referred to as 'the Council') to encourage, organise and, where appropriate, carry out measures, which will promote the provision of integrated, efficient and economic facilities and services which appear to the Council to be required to meet the needs of those elderly and disabled persons for whom transport concessions can be provided under section 138 of the Transport Act 1968."—[Ma. BOOTH.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Albert Booth: I beg to move, That the clause be read a second time.
The purpose of the clause is to impose on the Greater London Council a duty to promote the provision of services which, in its judgment, may be required to meet the needs of elderly and disabled persons.
It is necessary that such a clause be added to the Bill if the legislation is to serve the purpose for which it is intended, as outlined by the Secretary of State when he introduced it.
The Bill is the result of a series of urgent public considerations by transport authorities up and down the country to a Lords judgment which has thrown considerable doubt on the ability of local authorities to provide public transport services. In this case, we are concerned with those services only to the extent that they are used by elderly and disabled persons. However, the Law Lords ruling was of such a sweeping nature that we contend that there can be little doubt that it impinges upon services used by the elderly and the disabled to quite an appreciable extent.
The terms used by the Law Lords in their ruling cannot in any way qualify the restrictions that they imposed in such a way that they would not apply to services used by the elderly and the disabled.
The interesting mechanism of the Bill is that it puts the Greater London Council, in respect of its provisions for concessionary fares for the elderly and the disabled in the same position as the metropolitan and shire counties. Although it refers to the 1969 Act, it cites part of it which says merely that London boroughs are in the same position as other local authorities under the 1968 Act. The provision of these services will be affected by the Law Lords judgment to the extent that it affects any shire or metropolitan county throughout the country.
Over the last few weeks those shire and metropolitan counties have been greatly concerned about what services they can provide and what financial provision they should make for them. In no small measure, that led to the demonstration at Downing Street today and the massive petition that was delivered to the Prime Minister.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: A quarter of a million signatures.

Mr. Booth: If the power in the Bill is to be used without undue restriction, we must include a clause that says that in providing these services the people concerned are not constrained by the Law Lords judgment. In simple and straightforward terms, that is what the new clause proposes. It says that the duty of the GLC to exercise its judgment to develop the services needed for these disabled people is unfettered by the 1968 or 1969 Acts or, in so far as it is legally possible, by the Law Lords judgment.
Let me give one example of the extent to which the Law Lords judgment was sweeping and should not be read in a way that suggests that it would not bite on services to the disabled. I choose the judgment of Lord Scarman. Like the other Law Lords, for part of his judgment Lord Scarman drew on the case of Prescott v Birmingham corporation in 1955—the case of an operator in a transport undertaking.
In that case the Birmingham corporation decided to introduce free travel for old people, which is relevant to what we are now considering. The Court of Appeal held that the decision was not a proper exercise of the corporation's statutory duty. Therefore, there can be no doubt that the courts have taken a serious view of the limits placed on local authority powers to provide fare concessions.
On page 6 of his judgment Lord Scarman said that although Parliament had subsequently intervened to permit fare concessions,
a principle was declared by the Court of Appeal. It is well to put in the headnote as being that local authorities owe a fiduciary duty, analogous to that of a trustee, to their ratepayers".
He went on to say that
the principle of a fiduciary duty owed to the ratepayers has never been doubted".
In his summary Lord Scarman reiterated the principle as a basis for his final judgment. He said that although legislation had been introduced since the court ruled that it was wrong for Birmingham to operate a free concessionary fares scheme, the fiduciary duty principle was now established. In Lord Scarman's judgment, that still stands and can still be used as a test of whether the powers of a local authority to provide concessionary fares and concessionary travel schemes are used legally.
It is now beyond any shadow of a doubt that if the House decides that the GLC shall have power to promote

these services for elderly or disabled people it must say to any court, or to any person attempting to challenge the use of that power "We intended that that should be a free standing duty which should not be subject to any of the limits or circumscribed by the Law Lords judgment or anything else written into an Act".

The Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): The right hon. Gentleman seems to be suggesting that the remarks in the House of Lords were directed to concessionary fare schemes. He will know that such schemes were never raised in the House of Lords case and are not referred to in any of the judgments. The whole issue of concessionary fares giving rise to the Bill comes not from the House of Lords judgment, but from the GLC campaign, which has tried to suggest that it would not continue with the scheme.

Mr. Booth: With respect, the hon. and learned Gentleman either misunderstands me or chooses to misunderstand me. I carefully distinguished between the Birmingham corporation judgment, which was precisely directed to whether there was a power to provide free concessionary fares, and Lord Scarman and the other Law Lords who issued a judgment. In one case they were referring directly to a concessionary fares scheme, but when referring to Birmingham Lord Scarman was saying that, although subsequent legislation had been passed which made it clear that some powers permitted concessionary fares, nevertheless the principle of a fiduciary duty determined in the Birmingham case still stood. That means that any other concessionary fares powers that have been granted since are, in the view of Lord Scarman and his fellow Law Lords, still subject to the fiduciary duty test.
There would have been no sense in Lord Scarman using that reference unless he intended it to have that meaning. He was not saying that a fiduciary duty was peculiar to concessionary fares, but rather that a fiduciary duty must be considered in relation to any transport provision under any fares arrangement. The purpose of the new clause is to ensure that that should not be the case. We want the House to decide that the concessionary fares issue should be free standing and should not be affected by the Law Lords judgment or their view of a fiduciary duty.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Surely the Law Lords were saying that the fiduciary duty applied to any local authority powers—not just to transport*—and would apply to concessionary fares under the 1968 Act if the local authority, in the view of the court, failed to weigh the interest of the ratepayer against the interest of the pensioner and the fare payer. For example, if a local authority decided to make concessionary fares wholly free, thereby causing a massive rates increase, on the indication given by the House of Lords the courts would rule that illegal.

Mr. Booth: I fully accept my hon. Friend's point. I confined my remarks about fiduciary duty to transport, but the statement of principle cannot be confined to transport. It could even be argued that a council should take account of its fiduciary duty to ratepayers when deciding how much to charge for the home help service. Apparently the principle is the same whatever service is provided by a local authority. It certainly covers all fares issues, including concessionary fares.

Mr. Jay: In estimating the cogency of the Minister's intervention and his views on fiduciary duties, will my right hon. Friend take note of the fact that support for the hon. and learned Gentleman on the Conservative Benches is conspicuously absent?

Mr. Booth: One of the disadvantages of speaking from the Dispatch Box is that one sees one's opposition, but not one's supporters. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for causing me to look behind me. I am delighted that my arguments appear to be of great interest to my hon. Friends. I think that they command considerable support. It is notable that the same cannot be said about the Minister.

Mr. Sydney Chapman: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that we are very much in favour of the Bill? We have agreed both clauses and are now discussing the new clause tabled by the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends. It is of no interest to us, because it adds nothing to the Bill, and it is not likely to. As to the number of Conservative Members present, will the right hon. Gentleman remember the old adage that it is quality that counts, not quantity?

Mr. Booth: I am disappointed in the hon. Gentleman, who is normally fair-minded. His presence today indicates that he, at least, is prepared to listen to the arguments about whether the new clause is needed. I only wish that the same courtesy had been extended by some of his colleagues.
The issue impinges on what the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends would claim to be a matter of some importance for the powers of local authorities. In previous debates Conservative Members have made sweeping criticisms—some of them highly personal—of Greater London Council members who took a different view from them on this issue. We are trying to deploy a case which is realistically based on our most recent experience of attempts by local authorities to provide services that they deem to be necessary.
In doing that we are reflecting a proper concern for local democracy, which does not seem to be common to both sides of the House at the present time.
We must look at the provision of concessionary fare schemes under the 1968 Act. The powers of the GLC will now be the same as those of all the shire and metropolitan counties. Those powers, as the Under-Secretary of State well knows, vary enormously. There are areas in shire counties where there are virtually no concessionary schemes, areas where there are good concessionary schemes, and areas where there are different concessionary schemes. The same power will apply in London.
Up to the present time, particularly over the past year, the provision of concessionary fares for the elderly and disabled in London has been of a high order. Therefore, it is an important and valuable service that is at risk. When we debated this issue on 24 February the view was expressed from the Government Benches that the number of passes for concessionary fares applied for in London was not a good indication of the need for or the usage of those passes. It was even suggested that a modest fee might be charged on the pass application as a means of deterring undue use of the passes by people who did not really need them.
I made careful checks on both the contentions made at that time. One was that the cost was unduly high because

it was set against the number of passes. The second was that the use of the passes was comparatively modest. However, the use of the concessionary fares pass in London, far from being modest, is massive. There were 245 million passenger journeys travelled in London in 1979–80, as against 890 million journeys by normal fare-paying adults and fare-paying children, excluding those on travel tickets and education authority passes. For every three who were travelling as normal fare-paying adults or children, there was one travelling on a travel concession. There is massive use of the concessionary fare scheme in London. It is much greater than anywhere in the metropolitan counties. The scheme will be under exactly the same legal provision as in the metropolitan counties if we leave the Bill unchanged.
The collapse of services is very different in degree in its effect upon the concessionary fare user as compared with other passengers. Those entitled to the concessionary fare will be the very people who are least likely to have a car to use as an alternative if the concession is withdrawn. They will be the people least likely to be able to afford a taxi if the service is withdrawn. They will be the people least likely to be able to walk the necessary distance if the service is withdrawn. Therefore, we also have to see the question in the perspective of the service being threatened.
For that reason, we make no apology for using in the new clause the words
the provision of integrated, efficient and economic facilities and services
in relation to the people that I have mentioned. We believe that it is the desire of good local authorities throughout the country to provide services for the elderly and the disabled in a way that is efficient and economic. Provided that they have a free standing power to do it, we believe that they will do it in he majority of cases.

Mr. Clive Soley: Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the Government were serious about their economic and social policies in this respect, rather than using political opportunism in regard to Ken Livingstone and the GLC, they would be thinking of concessions for the unemployed, so that people could look for work effectively, rather than being asked to ride around on their bicycles.

The Chairman: Order. That question is outside the scope of the Bill.

Mr. Booth: I bow to you on that, Mr. Weatherill. Inasmuch as we are confined in our discussion of the Bill to concessions on services used by the elderly and the disabled, I urge the Committee to consider the fact that those provisions can make for a more efficient general use of the system. It was the case that, with London running superior concessionary services, there was better use of its vehicles.
According to the figures for 1979–80—I have the later figures if anyone wants them—London was getting 7·49 journeys per mile operated, as compared with only five journeys per mile operated in Greater Manchester, 5·99 in West Yorkshire, and 7·34 in South Yorkshire, which has a policy of very cheap fares. Nevertheless, even with that cheap fares policy, mainly because of the concessionary fare differences, the authority in South Yorkshire could not get as full a use of its vehicles as was obtained in London.
It is a matter of simple common sense that, if we believe it is right for local authorities to make provision for disabled and elderly people, they should make it in a way that leads to the maximum utilisation of the buses. There is little point in having a subsidy to run a service that can be used by disabled people if that results in a lot of empty seats. It is the combination of the services in an intelligent manner that leads to the maximum utilisation of the vehicles and that is what we want to see developed.
The reason why, over the past year, the concessionary travel arrangements have been regarded as so valuable in London is that, when the Labour GLC took office, it decided—and it is to be applauded for having done so—to extend the concessionary travel scheme for the elderly so that it would include free travel on the London Underground from 9.30 am on Mondays to Fridays and at any time on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. Prior to that decision, the charge made to an old-age pensioner for using the London Underground had been 20p, but even the withdrawal of the 20p fare has resulted in massively greater use, and that is very much to be welcomed. I do not believe that any hon. Member wants to sit in judgment on whether it is appropriate that an old-age pensioner should be able to travel on one day or another, or at one hour of the day or another. It is for local authorities to decide how to use their powers.
4 pm
If the Government are to confine the Bill to the narrow issue of concessionary fares in London, we should insist that that is done effectively. We want to ensure that the Greater London Council will have a power that will not be circumscribed by the House of Lords—a free-standing power, irrespective of any other duties in legislation, to promote properly services for the elderly and the disabled.
There can be no doubt, from any careful consideration of the judgment of the House of Lords, that unless it is made clear by some device—such as the new clause—that that power exists, whatever is written into the legislation will be subject to challenge and will be subject the test of fiduciary duty in a way that will put the service at risk and lead to authorities that might otherwise do so being deterred from providing services that are not only valuable, but desperately needed.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: The new clause raises the issue of the level of services that can be provided for the elderly and the disabled and embraces not only the power bestowed on the GLC by the Bill, but, in a sense, the Transport Act 1968, which allows for the provision of concessionary fares for the disabled and elderly outside London.
The Under-Secretary tried to argue on Second Reading—as he argued in an intervention today—that the question of concessionary fares had never arisen in the Lords judgment and that the 1968 Act was not prejudiced by the decision of the Lords about the exercise of fiduciary duty by the GLC. If there is no doubt about the right of the GLC to provide services for the elderly and the disabled, why is the Bill needed? The Transport (London) Act 1969 allows the GLC to provide those services. That was referred to by some of the Law Lords only in passing and was said to be part of the reaction of the Government to the judgment in the Prescott case. A number of the Law Lords referred to section 40 of the 1969 Act, which allowed similar rights as the 1968 Act. If that were true,

we would not require the Bill to reassert the power of the GLC to provide concessionary fares for the disabled and the elderly.

Mr. Ronald W. Brown: That point was argued last week. The answer was that under section 40(a) only the London boroughs could act in that role. As a result of that we were able to give freedom to London as a whole for the concessionary fares by using a 2p rate, which brought the matter under general local government powers and not under the 1968 Act.

Mr. Lyon: I take the hon. Member's point, but the issue to which I was coming, and which the hon. Member may have overlooked, is not that the power in section 40 was restricted simply to the London boroughs and that we wanted to give the power to the GLC, but that the issue that arose in relation to the general power given in the 1969 Act, and which was so circumscribed by the House of Lords in the GLC decision, is capable of being used against the 1968 Act and against the Bill.
The Law Lords have asserted that any power given to a local authority is subject not only to the ultra vires rule, but, as Lord Diplock made clear, to the ultra vires rule that is inextricably part of the discretion of any local authority. Therefore, in exercising discretion, a local authority is bound, by its fiduciary duty, to balance the interests of the ratepayers and any other group with which it is dealing.
The other group is not just the fare payer, which was the issue in the GLC case, but the elderly and the handicapped, for whom we are seeking to provide in the Bill and who were provided for under section 40, at least within the London boroughs, and in the 1968 Act. We are not yet clear—because no one has gone to court on the 1968 Act—whether the courts would take the same view of an exercise of discretion under the 1968 Act as they did in relation to the 1969 Act and general subsidies for transport.
It was assumed, as is clear from the fact that the Government have produced the Bill, that the courts would say that the provision of concessionary fares was not an unreasonable exercise of discretion, but there is no reason to assume that. I suppose that the exercise of discretion by the GLC on the fare structure under the scheme produced after the London elections was a reasonable exercise of' power given the considerations to which the GLC applied itself. However, if the GLC considers that all elderly people and all handicapped people should have not just concessionary fares, but free travel, and that they could' use the tubes or the buses at any time, with a consequent loss of revenue, which was made up by the rates to the point at which the precept rose sharply, would it not be argued by an outer London borough that the same issue had arisen there as arose on the fares structure for general passengers? The answer is "Yes".
We have got into a mess because the judiciary has taken it into its head to exercise a political role. It denies that, but there is no doubt about it. Once we get beyond the stage of defining what an Act says, as a matter of English law, wording and construction, and go into whether a local authority or any other political organisation has to decide between one set of people and another and into the sort of criteria that it should apply, we are applying a political decision.
Saying that something is unfair to ratepayers is a political decision. I can equally say that an action is unfair


to passengers. I do say—indeed, it is implicit in everything that I have stood for—that it would be better if the less well off got benefits from the better off. In that sense, the general ratepayer is better off than the general fare payer. They may coincide in some instances, but where they do not—where one group comprises judges going to the High Court in their robes—the one group is better able to pay than those who can afford to travel only by public transport.
In evaluating the interests of one group against the other, my presupposition would be to weigh heavily in favour of those who are least able to afford the money involved. In making that judgment I am applying what I freely concede to be a political test—but so were the Law Lords.
In those circumstances, how do we know that when we have passed the Bill it will be applied as we wish? We cannot rely on what the Minister says, because we all know that no court is entitled to take into account what a Minister says. It can take into account only what the Act says, as interpreted according to the criteria applied by courts in the past.
Ever since the Poplar case, and especially since the Prescott case, the courts have taken to themselves the power of evaluating interest politically. We cannot enact the Bill in a way that will obviate that danger. The courts will always take the interest consideration into account in evaluating any decision made by a local authority. At the time of the Prescott case it was considered unthinkable that an authority could not provide free transport in Birmingham for the elderly. The court's decision was subsequently reversed, apparently, by the 1968 Act. It is now an axiomatic feature of social services in all major urban areas to provide free travel on the buses, or cheaper travel, for the elderly. The public now think that that is reasonable. There has been a sea change in political decision-making.

Mr. Christopher Price: If only that were true everywhere.

Mr. Lyon: It is true that it has not percolated into all areas of Conservative-held territory, but it is true over a broad generality. It is possible for the Minister to argue that if the Bill is enacted it will safeguard the rights of pensioners only because there has been a sea change in the political consensus.
Where is the political consensus of the judiciary? It seems that it is away to the right of the political consensus in the country and a long way to the right of the consensus in Labour-held councils and on the Opposition Benches. We have a serious problem. Ever since Dicey produced his constitutional theory in the nineteenth century it has been supposed that the House is the final arbiter of political decision-making. Increasingly, that is being undermined—

The Chairman: Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman's remarks would be better related to a Second Reading debate than to the new clause, which has nothing to do with what he is speaking about.

Mr. Lyon: I was trying to lead, Mr. Weatherill, to my understanding of why the clause is necessary. Although the clause is probably the best that we can do, given the

long title and other considerations, it probably will not be enough. That is the factor that worries me. Even this clause, if it is accepted, will have to be interpreted by judges who have already stamped their political colours on the criteria that will be applied in interpreting it. That is a serious difficulty for the House of Commons.
If we were discussing these issues in the United States Senate, we would understand the position perfectly well. We would know, to take President Roosevelt's example, that if we wanted to enact the clause we would first have to change the Supreme Court judges. If we want to pass this sort of clause here in the House of Commons, we may have to change the judges in the High Court and in the House of Lords.

Mr. Harry Greenway: Shame.

Mr. Lyon: Those who argue that the judiciary is the final bulwark of liberty fail to understand what they are asking the judges to do. Judges such as the Master of the Rolls, who make judgments of the type to which I have referred with their eyes open, fail to recognise that if the country decides in a general election to elect a Government who have a different view and a political consensus different from theirs, that Government must rule and that if need be they will have to change the judiciary if they are to rule.
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The hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) has said "Shame". I, too, say "Shame." When I was studying constitutional law I was told that what Parliament said would be applied by the judiciary. The constitutional law that I learnt was right. I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees that it was right. However, it seems that things have changed. If the new clause is passed and is subsequently enacted with the rest of the Bill, there is no guarantee that the judiciary will apply it as the House of Commons wishes. I suspect that the Minister will say that the clause is unnecessary because the Bill as it stands will do what is set out in the clause. However, I maintain that we need the clause. It should appear in the Bill with three lines under each line of it. We need a sort of three-line Whip. But even if we had a three-line Whip, that would not necessarily carry the day.
We shall not know what will happen to the clause until it reaches the House of Lords, when a number of judges will express their view on the political reality of the balance between the elderly and the disabled and the ratepayer.

Mr. Jay: We might, as my hon. Friend suggests, take a leaf out of President Roosevelt's book. My hon. Friend will remember that President Roosevelt changed not the judges but the age at which judges retired.

Mr. Lyon: My right hon. Friend is right. I think that the Labour Government thought of that in 1968. The retiring age of judges has been reduced to 75. However, there was one that got away, and he is the worst of the lot. The next Labour Government may have to reduce the retiring age of judges substantially. Perhaps I err a little when I say that we shall have to change the way in which judges are trained and appointed and the way in which the Bar is recruited. However, that takes us outside the confines of the clause and the rules of order.

The Chairman: Order. I say with the greatest kindness that the hon. Gentleman was good enough to say a short time ago that he was coming round to discussing the new clause. I hope that we shall come to that now.

Mr. Lyon: I am grateful, Mr. Weatherill, because I had just about got there. I recognise that I had erred and strayed in my last remark.
The clause is unexceptionable and I am sure that the Minister will accept it. It merely states what the Bill is supposed to do. It does so in terms similar to the ill-fated terms of the 1969 Act. In using the phrase "integrated, efficient and economic" we are employing the dreadful word "economic". We know what happened to "economic" when it reached the House of Lords. When we ask "How will the judges deal with this?", the answer is that they will probably deal with it in the same way as they dealt with other legislation. That is what worries me.
Surely the clause sets out what the Bill is supposed to be trying to do. Its purpose is to say that the elderly and the disabled of London are entitled to concessionary fares, too. We should be able to guarantee concessionary fares for them in the way that we desire and as we have guaranteed elsewhere. Of course, there are some who question whether it is right to have concessary fares in Birmingham, Leeds, South Yorkshire, or even in the fair city of York.
One of the major problems in York is transport. There are narrow streets and many large buses and cars. The only way in which we shall overcome the problem is by subsidising bus passengers to the point where we persuade people to use the buses and to leave their cars. Even if we had the statutory power to do that, the judges would overrule it. How do we know that they will not do that with concessionary fares for the elderly and the disabled?
If the Minister says that he accepts the general principle set out in the new clause, I hope that he will say that a further amendment will be introduced in the House of Lords which states that no court will be able to exercise the discretion that is vested in the clause and that it will not be possible to challenge the exercise of that discretion in any court. If the Minister were prepared to do that, I do not doubt that we could overrule the power of the court to apply political doctrine to the Bill. However, until we do that, although I am not sure that the new clause is adequate, it is the best that we can do in the circumstances.

Mr. Sydney Bidwell: In debates of this kind, the House is in danger of being subjected to a lawyer's beanfeast. I suggest that we have just listened to one such speech. Although I agree with the general tone of the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Lyon), it could have been much briefer. There is no amendment in his name that suggests that his ideas are superior to those of my fight hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth).
My main concern is about the prospect of interference with the existing benefits of the aged and disabled in the London area. Of course, the Minister will suggest that the Bill preserves those benefits, but that is not the view of many hon. Members and members of the public. The Minister must clear up that problem this afternoon. There will always be a running argument about the role of the House and that of the judiciary, but whatever we do today or before the Bill is passed should not impair that system—whether we change the wording of the new

clause, or whether the Government accommodate it or promise second thoughts about the present inadequacies of the Bill.
This is a limited discussion, but part of the burden of my speech on Second Reading was the enormous boon of free travel for many aged people in my constituency, who I know I cherished it. The fiduciary and financial aspects have clouded the discussion to the extent that there is a risk of losing sight of human considerations and of the iron necessity to do what we can to safeguard and even extend the mobility of the aged. It is mobility that is so important to them in getting together with their relatives over long distances.

Mr. Ronald W. Brown: The hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon) put his finger on the issue. Having worked in local government over the years, we both understand the rules of the game. Those rules were called into question the first time that someone took action against a local authority—I think that it was Tameside—which had acted within its political remit and done what it had promised in the local elections. The council was challenged by the ratepayers.
Since then, in a continuing process, the Government have taken local authorities to court through third parties, third parties have taken local authorities to court and local authorities have taken other local authorities to court. The whole thing is now in a mess. The hon. Member for York is right to say that whatever we draft here, representing local government, will always be challengeable in the courts and can always be set aside or interfered with depending on who hears the case. The case can be taken as far as the House of Lords and a different decision secured every time. The Minister must ask himself whether we can any longer accept the risk of such challenge.
From his years in the courts the hon. Member for York knows whether it is right to argue that the individual's right should be so circumscribed as to refuse him recourse to the courts if he thinks that a local authority is abusing the law. On his argument, that is what we must do, but it is a dangerous move. In a whole range of matters, an individual should have the right to take a local authority to court if he believes that he has a case.
I do not see how new clause 2 provides anything more than is provided by section 138 of the Transport Act 1968, under which any local authority has a right to provide concessionary fares. The cause of the present difficulty is that the GLC in 1981 apparently decided that it could no longer operate concessionary fares under the 2p rate system. If it could have done so, there would have been no problem. I understand that the Minister said on Second Reading that the GLC claimed no longer to be able to continue that service under the 2p rate system. We agreed that years ago, with no equivocation about the proper way of doing it. Once it was said that the service could not be provided by means of a 2p rate, we were kicked into touch and London had to do something about it. Therefore, it is important to ensure that, under section 138, we have no less a right than the rest of the country. If the hon. Member for York is correct and that right has been equivocated, it must affect every local authority. The issue is much broader than concessionary fares for London alone. One must therefore consider the application of the 1968 Act as


a whole to ensure that London is no less privileged than the rest of the country. That seems to be where we are now.
I support the Bill and I advise my right hon. and hon. Friends to support new clause 2 because I see nothing wrong with it. It is simply a re-emphasis—the Minister may say, an unnecessary one—of the existing law but there is nothing wrong with it. It could be argued that these further words might provide a greater opportunity for someone to challenge the law. I can think of a whole range of possible arguments about the "efficient and economic" nature of facilities in London.
For instance, the 277 bus route through Hackney is more like a 138½ route because people wait half an hour for a bus and then two come along. That has been a continuing complaint over the years. If I wanted to be contentious I could have a go about the words "efficient and economic", because the facilities in my borough are neither. We have no underground and we could argue that that makes our facilities uneconomic and inefficient.

Mr. Booth: Does the hon. Gentleman consider that the use of the words "efficient and economic" attached to a duty to promote services to meet the needs of a disadvantaged group is rather different from the much broader context in which "economic" was used in the 1969 Act?

Mr. Brown: I accept the right hon. Gentleman's point but I would ask him to consider something else. He made an excellent case for the new clause, but we have had this argument about efficiency before in London. When we were pressing for the original concessionary fares, this was the major plank of the opposition by Sir Richard Way, who was then the chairman of London Transport, against my argument about putting bottoms on seats. I argued that, in the fares structure, the seat was paid for and that whether the seat held the bottom of an elderly person or not was neither here nor there. Sir Richard Way quoted figures which allegedly showed that many of the people for whom this benefit was claimed were at that time paying passengers and that London Transport would lose money if concessionary fares were introduced. That is how we reached the figure of £3 7s 8d. per concessionary pass, because it was argued that that represented the loss to the LTE of giving each elderly person concessionary travel between 9.30 am and 3.30 pm.
The argument was also advanced that one could not expect the same number of vehicles to be on the road between 9.30 am and 3.30 pm as during the two peak periods. It is in this context that I ask the right hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) to consider the words "efficient and economic". A duty has been placed upon London Transport by the Law Lords and everyone else to run an efficient and effective service. To do that, it will have to leave the majority of buses in the garage between 9.30 am and 3.30 pm in order to save costs and thus be sure of remaining within the concept of efficiency.

Mr. Booth: With respect, taking buses off the road at times when concessionary fares are most likely to be used cannot be consistent with a duty to promote services specifically to meet the needs of elderly and disabled

people. I believe that that duty would be a protection for the GLC if anybody challenged it. Because it has a duty to provide for the needs of these people, it is entitled to keep the buses running efficiently.

Mr. Brown: That may be so. I do not know. I merely ask the question. The overwhelming duty upon the GLC, and through it on the LTE, is that it must run a financially viable service, and to be efficient and effective in so doing. It seems to me that the efficiency and effectiveness rather than the financial viability will be subject to qualification, so that it will be driven to set the financial viability of the undertaking as a whole as primus inter pares among those criteria.
It would then follow that the majority of buses will be in the garages between 9.30 am and 3.30 pm, so that people receiving the facility of concessionary travel in London will have the misery of being unable to find a bus in which to travel. They will be frustrated. If they succeed in finding a bus and getting out of London to visit their families, they will have difficulty in getting back because they will fall foul of the time limits. They will therefore have to wait far longer than they wish and return to areas such as mine in the dark, when they will be afraid to walk home from the bus stop. That, too, will be a disincentive.
I do not object to the new clause, but I do not think that it adds anything to section 138, which already provides all these powers. There have been no complaints from the metropolitan counties or from other passenger transport authorities, who have enjoyed this power since 1968. If there had been any way in which those authorities considered themselves to be circumscribed, we should have heard about it. The Association of Municipal Authorities would have said that changes were needed. So far as I know, it has never done so.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Nobody has tried it on.

Mr. Brown: As the hon. Gentleman says, nobody has tried it on. Nevertheless, authorities have plenty of lawyers, but even the AMA has not asked for the legislation to be amended to protect its members.
I do not disagree with the new clause and I do not argue against the ethos of it. I simply believe that it does no more than restate the fact that any local authority wishing to run such a scheme is entitled to do so. In London, there is a problem in that the London Transport Executive is a separate entity. There has never been the same degree of control as for other passenger transport authorities, so there is the major difficulty of trying to run the local authority and the transport authority when there is that distance between them.
As has been said many times, the question is how to reconcile the duty being placed on the LTE to be financially viable and this technique to allow concessionary fares or any other form of free fares—"Fares Fair" or however one describes them.
I therefore offer this advice to the Minister for the third time. As I said on Second Reading, we must have a meeting with all the relevant parties to discuss how to get out of the difficulty. We shall not achieve a solution by tinkering in this way. I support the Bill because the fears of the elderly must be allayed, but I hope that the Minister will tell us that he has reconsidered the matter since Thursday and that he and his right hon. Friend will undertake to get together with the GLC, the LTE and local authorities in London to discuss how best to proceed,


bearing in mind all the points raised by the right hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness, and how to ensure the best safeguards to achieve the aims of new clause 2 in terms of integrated, efficient and economic facilities and services not only for the elderly and disabled but for London as a whole.

Mr. Christopher Price: I support the new clause, but I share the scepticism of my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Lyon) about the amount of good that it may do. Incidentally, I have no objection to a Yorkshireman who has drifted down to London contributing to a debate about London. I see no harm at all in foreigners having a go on these matters.
As I understand it, the Bill has been introduced because the GLC has asked for it because it feels that it would help to protect its concessionary fares scheme. The new clause has been introduced by the Opposition in the hope that it will help the GLC a little more by releasing it from the trap in which it has been caught by the House of Lords.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I have tried to contain myself, but so far everyone has been speaking on false premises. The GLC has not been caught by the House of Lords. As the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Brown) said, the GLC has decided that it does not wish to spend the 2p rate on the concessionary fares scheme. It has, therefore, asked for this power, and we are giving it. There has never been the slightest doubt in the mind of anyone who has considered the matter that the GLC could continue the concessionary fares scheme. The debate has been based upon nonsensical and mythical fears.

Mr. Price: It is all very well for the Minister to say that the GLC might wish to spend the 2p rate on something else so it has asked for the Bill. Nevertheless, after the Lords judgment, a number of eminent lawyers advised the GLC that the concessionary fares scheme might be in doubt, while other eminent lawyers advised—perhaps not in such wild language as the Minister used, but roughly in the the same terms—that it would not be in doubt. The speeches so far show that the arguments have merit.
I come to the most important point. As my hon. Friend the Member for York said, notwithstanding the Bill and the new clause, it is still possible for any court, whether it be the House of Lords or the Court of Appeal, to say that none of the legislation helps at all because, in taking these decisions and balancing its duty to the elderly against its duty to the ratepayers, the GLC has failed in its fiduciary duty to the ratepayers. Since the House of Lords decision, any court may rule in that way on old or disabled peoples's fares or any other transport aspect. That issue is relevant to this new clause because we must decide whether there is any point in introducing it and whether it has the force, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) said, of ensuring that the GLC, when operating a concessionary fares scheme, is not frustrated by the judiciary.
I know all about the difficulties of this matter because I had a brief appointment as a parliamentary private secretary in 1976 over the Tameside case. The now retired legal adviser to the Department of Education and Science, Mr. Dudman, told the Minister in a laughing tone that he must not believe he could draft judge-proof legislation. He was, of course, right; the House cannot pass legislation with any certainty that a bench of judges will not overrule it.

Mr. Bidwell: I appreciate my hon. Friend's point and the possibility of overturning what might be adduced as the will of Parliament. I understand that we are dancing words on the end of a needle. We agree, even if the wording of the amendment is not perfect, that it seeks to impose a specific duty on the GLC which it did not have previously.

Mr. Price: I understand that aspect and hope that it is helpful. My hon. Friend the Member for York is a lawyer and I noted his remarks. However, I and my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell) are not. The amendment might not be helpful. One will only know that when the Bill is first litigated and not on the Royal Assent. I notice that the hon. Member for Ravenshourne (Mr. Hunt) has left the Chamber. Only if a busybody outer London borough council takes the matter to court to discover, using ratepayers' funds and public money, what the House of Lords, as presently assembled, thinks about this Bill will we know whether it will be helpful.
The Bill attempts to put the GLC on all fours with other local authorities under the 1968 Act. Since the GLC judgment, the 1968 Act has been litigated in Liverpool by Great Universal Stores. On 18 February R v. Merseyside county council ex parte Great Universal Stores was heard before the wise, intelligent and wonderful Mr. Justice Woolf. I know my Erskine May and that I am allowed to praise judges, although I must not cast any aspersions on them. I praise Mr. Justice Woolf to the skies. He represented the Government as a Treasury devil in the Tameside case. Although he was not made a judge for his pains on that case, he became a judge soon after it.
Mr. Justice Woolf has an excellent track record. He found the Secretary of State for Social Services guilty over the Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham case and recently exonerated the Liverpool council over its cheap fares under the 1968 Act. I quote from his judgment on the 1968 Act because it is extremely relevant to this new clause; it will help Parliament to know what the judiciary might in future think about the wording of the new clause. On the Liverpool decision, he said that it did not automatically follow that the setting of fares to a level which would result in a deficit, which it was practicable to avoid, was unlawful. There was a discretion to do so and whether the discretion was lawful or not would depend on how the decision to set the fares at such a level was reached.
He continued that while in both cases—the GLC and Liverpool cases—initially there was indecent haste about the attempts to put into effect the policies which had been pronounced in the manifestos before the election, in the present case there was more temperate consideration given to the desirability and consequences of putting into effect the policies. A further distinguishing feature of the present case was of the policies adopted by the council after the election which were very much more important in, accordance with the Merseyside structure plan, as approved by the Secretary of State, which made it clear that transport was important for the regeneration of the area.
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I use those two passages to stress the narrow thread on which hangs the interpretation of this new clause, if it passed into litigation and was tested in the courts on its legality. The GLC must consider its various duties towards old peoples' transport, farepayers and ratepayers and


whether it has properly carried out its fudiciary duty to the ratepayers according to the quotation given by my right hon. Friend from the House of Lords Scarman judgment.
The whole matter turned on temperate consideration. The House of Lords said that Ken Livingstone was intemperate and Mr. Justice Woolf said that the Liverpool council was temperate. That cannot be a sensible way to legislate. We are certainly voting on the new clause and trying to perceive some sense in this narrow Bill, but there must be a better way of legislating.
There is no London underground system in Lewisham. Buses are provided and my constituents consider them to be unco-ordinated; they come in bunches and do not provide an integrated or efficient service as in the terms of the new clause. They are certainly not integrated as are other transport facilities provided in my constituency by British Rail. The GLC rightly wanted to grant concessions with British Rail so that we might have the service as set out in the Bill—"integrated, efficient service". The Minister said "No"; British Rail was not to be allowed to grant concessions. Pure Government policy prevented what the new clause attempts to provide in London; integrated, efficient and economic facilities and services.

Mr. Roger Stott: The GLC intended to do a little more then my hon. Friend said. Its leadership offered British Rail £20 million in order that British Rail might reduce its fares in line with the fare reductions for buses and tubes in London, which would have considerably helped people in Bromley—those who originally brought the action. My hon. Friend is right; the Government refused to allow British Rail to do that because it would have been outside the external financing limit.

The Chairman: Order. Before the hon. Gentleman attempts to respond to that intervention, I point out that the new clause is concerned with the needs of the elderly and the disabled, not with general fare reductions.

Mr. Price: I am aware of that, Mr. Weatherill. I am also aware that one can get away with murder from the Front Bench. We poor folk on the Back Benches have to tread much more carefully. I agree with the point, but I shall not follow my hon. Friend. We are talking about whether the right of the GLC to make concessions to elderly people is further entrenched by the new clause or whether it makes no difference.
In future, the GLC will wish to give old people and disabled people the same concessions on British Rail that they receive on the buses and the underground. If the track record of the Minister is any guide, he will use his powers of fiat that Parliament has given him to prevent London Transport giving such concessions. I should therefore like to know from the Minister his attitude to concessions on British Rail. I once asked the hon. and learned Gentleman in a parliamentary question if he would care to accompany me on a journey around the South Circular road. The hon. and learned Gentleman demurred, saying that it was some time since he had been around the South Circular road and that he did not wish to undertake such a journey in the near future. I understand his feelings.
If, however, the Minister had accepted my invitation, we would have come to a large traffic jam at Forest Hill in my constituency. It is your unhappy task and duty, Mr.

Weatherill, to have to cross occasionally the South Circular road, if not to have to face the prospect that confronts me of driving repeatedly round it to get from one end of my constituency to the other. On this journey, if the hon. and learned Gentleman had accompanied me, we would have come to Forest Hill station where four or five bus services terminate. That raises the issue of integrated services for old people and disabled people and whether the GLC should be allowed to contribute towards helping to build a bus station to form a proper interchange with Forest Hill station. I see the Government Whip, the hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Gummer) taking a vague interest because he was the former hon. Member for the constituency before I defeated him in the 1974 general election.
If the GLC is to be allowed to put money into facilities to enable buses to park at Forest Hill so that old people and disabled people can transfer to trains and receive the same concessions, there must be some indication from the Minister that he will not simply use his powers, as he did in the previous case, to say that he intends to prevent this sort of integrated public transport for old people and disabled people in London.
Exactly the same situation prevails at Catford and Catford Bridge stations. Again, on your peregrinations south, Mr. Weatherill, you will know that these are also points where a number of buses reach their terminus. There is a desperate need for some integrated system that will free elderly people and disabled people from the need to cross difficult roads and negotiate awkward steps and staircases to change from one form of public transport to another.
I should like to know from the Minister whether he would refuse to agree if the GLC, under the terms of the Bill when it becomes an Act, were to suggest investing substantial resources in this sort of interchange system that is desperately needed to assist the mobility of elderly and disabled people in moving from one form of transport to another. This is the sort of scheme that the Bill should produce.
I shall vote for the new clause. I shall vote for it in the knowledge that the Bill is completely inadequate and merely tinkers with the real needs of the elderly and the disabled in London. There is need for an assurance from the Minister that this is essentially an interim measure and that he will produce proposals for proper public transport that old and disabled people in London can use and can afford.

Mr. Jay: In expressing my support for the new clause I should declare an interest, in that I am myself a beneficiary of concessionary fares, although I assure the Minister that I am still a good deal younger than the Master of the Rolls.
The poverty of the Government's case is made even more evident by the almost total lack of support that they have received from their Back Benchers. My hon. Friends the Members for York (Mr. Lyon) and for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) have made it clear that the law on this whole matter is very much in need of clarification and that this will not be achieved by what is an extremely meagre Bill.

Mr. Greenway: I wish the right hon. Gentleman nothing but good health in his seventies, eighties and beyond. He will recall—he attended the whole of the


Second Reading debate—that a substantially greater number of Back Benchers supported the Bill from the Government Benches than spoke in opposition to it from the Labour Benches.

Mr. Jay: Although some Conservative Members may have supported the Bill on Second Reading, it is obvious that, after taking some time for reflection, they have concluded that it does not deserve so much support after all. The Minister, in his brief intervention, argued that the whole debate rests on a misunderstanding, that everyone knows what the law is and that there is no need for clarification. Following the experience of the Law Lords judgment, I do not think that many people will be comforted by the hon. and learned Gentleman's remarks. Everyone thought, until December, that the low fares policy of the GLC was legal. The Minister could have got up and said that there was no need for legislation, because there were no doubts. I have every sympathy for the new clause, which is intended to put it beyond doubt so far as is humanly possible that old people and the disabled have the right to concessionary fares.
My other criticism is that the Bill is inadequate even in its provision for the old and the disabled. By refusing wider concessions the Government are forcing other travellers in London, who will now have to pay much higher fares, to pay for the old people's concessionary fares instead of those concessionary fares being paid, as should be, from Government support grants.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: The right hon. Gentleman makes a false suggestion. As he knows, the present, lawful budget that the GLC has approved allows £58 million to be spent out of the rates on the concessionary fares scheme. There is not the slightest doubt that the GLC has the legal power to do this. It has the Attorney-General's advice that it can. It will be paid, like everywhere else, out of the rates. It is nonsense to suggest that there is doubt about that part of the law. It is nonsense to say that it will be paid for by other people.

5 pm

Mr. Jay: I am arguing that, as a result of higher fares, London Transport will have a smaller deficit to meet and therefore the Government will not be under the same pressure to provide funds to cover the deficit as they would have been if the fares had not been increased. That is clearly so. Therefore, support for concessionary fares for the elderly is partly dependent upon the large increases in other fares which we shall be forced to meet.
People forget that the elderly often do not live alone, but live and are dependent upon one or more breadwinners, who also travel to work. If the breadwinner is unable to travel to work because of the extremely high fares, the elderly person's standard of living will also be severely affected. Only today I received a letter from a constituent which states:
I am a nurse and I travel every working day from the above address"—
in Battersea—
to Camberwell … I found that the fair fare helped me a lot in the few months it came into being…Please can you do something to help us—the travelling public. I am the breadwinner of the family as my husband is unemployed, and with the benefit cuts I am feeling the crunch at the moment because it is me who has to pay the rent and the bills.
That brings a breath of the real world into the debate. The bureaucratic atmosphere in which the Minister moves gives him little contact with that world.
As a result of the general increase in fares there will be an undoubted deterioration in services. I think that it was the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Brown) who said that people may have to wait half an hour for a bus. It should be borne in mind that it is not only the relatively young who have to wait that time, but the elderly. Given the Government's policies and this meagre Bill, services will undoubtedly deteriorate.
Only a few days ago Sir Peter Masefield, chairman of London Transport, and Sir James Swaffield, the director-general of the GLC—who are not mad Marxists, or even mad monetarists, but who have considerable knowledge of London Transport—warned that the present policies would lead to a further deterioration of conditions. According to the Financial Times,  Sir Peter Masefield said:
London Transport expects that when fares double in three weeks time, 18 per cent. of passenger traffic will be driven away from the buses and tubes.
Services will be worse and there will be longer waits, and that will clearly affect the elderly as well as those who are younger.
According to the Financial Times,  Sir Peter said:
The new fares will be twice those offered by urban transport authorities in Paris and Amsterdam.
Indeed, Sir Peter Masefield confirms what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) and by my hon. Friend the Member for York, that there is a crying need for the law to be clarified, and the Bill does not do that.
We have rightly been told that great emphasis has been laid on the novel doctrine that local councils owe a fiduciary duty to ratepayers. However, they also owe a fiduciary duty to fare payers. It is ludicrous to say that ratepayers and not travellers—although they are often one and the same—are owed a fiduciary duty.
Hon. Members receive many letters on this subject. I received a letter from the Rickmansworth and Croxley Green Farepayers Association. Let hon. Members note that there are now fare payers' associations as well as ratepayers' associations. The letter states:
As an Association we are totally non-political, but we support completely that which you are seeking to achieve.
However, I shall not discuss my Ten-Minute Bill now.
Our members face a horrendous rise in fares and we are most grateful to you. If we can assist in any way, please let us know.
I hope that it will be realised that local authorities owe a fiduciary duty to fare payers as well as to ratepayers.
I am glad to note from your tolerance, Mr. Weatherill, that my speech has been wholly in order. Therefore, for the reasons that I have given, I support the new clause and continue to regard the Bill as inadequate.

Mr. William Pitt: I apologise for the slight croakiness of my voice, but I think that I am about to go down with something nasty—[Interruption.]
When discussing our duties—fiduciary or otherwise—we must remember, in our duty, humanity. The right hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) said that if Greater London did not have an integrated, efficient and economic transport scheme the system would collapse and paralyse those on concessionary fares. I refer not only to old-age pensioners—some of whom may well be mobile—but to the disabled, and particularly to the blind, who rely heavily on buses and tubes. In the south London suburbs, people rely heavily on the buses.
As I said on Second Reading, without an integrated service our bus services will not run at uneconomical times. The Bill does not give the GLC sufficient powers to provide such integrated services. Those services are necessary in the interests of humanity and in the furtherance of our fiduciary duty. Hon. Members have spoken at length about fiduciary duty. Indeed, I wonder whether any hon. Member will count in Hansard the number of times that that phrase is used during this debate alone.
Many old-age pensioners are also ratepayers and travellers. I have many old-age pensioners in my constituency, and we have fiduciary duties towards them. One of those duties is to provide a transport system from which they can benefit, through fare concessions. It is pointless to give a fare concession to an old-age pensioner or to a disabled person if he arrives at the bus stop only to discover that as a result of the Law Lords judgment no buses are running or that they may run only during the latter half of a morning and on Tuesday afternoon.
We are in danger of turning old-age pensioners and the disabled into second-class citizens. The humanity that should be implicit and inherent in our duty is to ensure that our citizens—whether they are pensioners, disabled or perfectly fit and able—are not divided into two classes. That is the predominant reason for supporting the clause.
I take the points made by the hon. Members for York (Mr. Lyon) and for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price). I am not a lawyer but I agree that it is impossible to draft judge-proof legislation. However, we must draft legislation that places the correct duty on an authority. The Bill does not give the GLC sufficiently strong powers to carry out its fiduciary and humanitarian duties to all those in Greater London. My right and hon. Friends and I wholeheartedly support the new clause, because in both fiduciary and humanitarian terms it places that duty on the GLC.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: Before I stray into the possibility of becoming controversial or advising the House to reject the new clause, I shall take up the parts in the speech made by the hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Pitt) with which I agree. When one cuts through all the remarks that have been made, one finds that everyone agrees on this point. There is no hon. Member on either side of the House who does not wish to see the Greater London Council have powers to operate a concessionary fares scheme for elderly and disabled passengers on London Transport. The Law Lords judgment was not directed to that aspect. The Government have never questioned it. The purpose of the Bill is to put beyond doubt the ability of the GLC to have such a concessionary fares scheme.
The hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Brown) said that pensioners in London were scared about the future of their concessions. Some people are concerned. They have been scared by irresponsible campaigning by people in the London Labour Party who have been trying to advance their views on separate issues—the cheap fares policy and the raising of the rates. They have been trying to advance that cause by dragging in doubts about the concessionary fares scheme and claiming that someone somewhere wants to stop it. That is not so.
Upon examining the legislation after the Law Lords judgment, it was found that the GLC does not have the same express power to use the rates for concessionary fares as is given to every other local authority up and down the country—county councils and boroughs, including the London boroughs. The GLC could have continued the concessionary fares scheme using its general power to levy a 2p rate. It made it clear to us that, as a matter of policy, it would not do so because it wanted to spend the 2p rate on other things. For that reason—in order to make sure that it could not introduce genuine doubt about the future of the concessionary fares scheme—we introduced the legislation, which gives the GLC the same powers as every other authority.
Incidentally, the powers given by the Bill as it stands, without the new clause, are not subject to the other parts of the Transport (London) Act 1969 that cover the general financing of London Transport. There will be a free standing power to use the ratepayers' money for the purpose of financing a concessionary fares scheme. Acting on that, the GLC has already made provision for a concessionary fares scheme.
I apologise for giving the wrong figure when I was speaking off-the-cuff to the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay). I should have said not £58 million, but £50 million. There is already provision in the GLC's budget for £50 million for the concessionary fares scheme in London. That is a lawful budget. It is not cast in any doubt by the Law Lords judgment. Because doubt continues to be expressed, we have gone to the extent of letting the GLC have the Attorney-General's opinion, which puts it beyond doubt that it is a lawful budget.

Mr. Jay: If, as the Minister said, there was a distinction between the powers for concessionary fares between the Greater London Council and all other local authorities in the rest of the country, surely there was some reason for doubt? It was not a political myth invented by the London Labour Party. There was a real distinction in the law. That is why the Bill has been introduced.

Mr. Clarke: The GLC could have continued using its general powers for a 2p rate, but, in order to produce certainty, the Government acceded to its request to introduce the Bill. We now have a Bill which is not hedged round by the other duties.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: rose—

Mr. Clarke: I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman as I wish to make progress. I shall deal with the legal and supposedly legal points bandied about in the debate.
The new clause is an attempt to add to the Bill over and above what we have provided. There is a clear power, which is the same as that provided for other local authorities, to provide a concessionary fares scheme.
5.15 pm
What is wrong with the new clause is that it produces a convoluted addition to the Bill. In Committee I normally do not make drafting points against the Opposition. I remember the difficulties that I had in Opposition. I do not believe that one should make drafting points. However, given that the whole burden of the case presented to the Government is that the law is confused and that judges play about with badly drafted law, in my view the clause is absolute nonsense and will not assist.
The clause refers only to statutory duties imposed on the GLC. The fiduciary duty to the ratepayers is not statutory, so it does not cover the legal point that was exercising the minds of the hon. Members for York (Mr. Lyon) and for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price). It sets out a convoluted and extraordinary sequence of words, which would give fruitful sources of income to lawyers in future as they attempted to make sense of the Opposition's new clause.
It is amusing to see that the wording of the new clause is taken from the dreaded 1969 Act, which, according to the campaigners on behalf of the GLC, is a source of all the trouble. An attempt was made during the debate to find virtue in the phrase "integrated, efficient and economic". That phrase is used in the 1969 Act, which has been much debated. Having lifted the phrase from the 1969 Act, the new clause applies it not to transport, but to facilities and services. There is already a duty to provide "integrated, efficient and economic" transport, whatever that means. It is said that there is a duty to provide such transport not for Greater London, but for disabled and elderly persons. Instead of having a general duty to provide integrated and economic transport for Greater London as a whole, apparently that duty is to be confined to elderly and disabled persons.
The new clause is a legitimate basis for debate. I understand the desire of some hon. Members to debate the matter further, but as a piece of legislation it would be an appalling dog's breakfast and would give rise to a greater risk of litigation in future.
The Bill gives power to use ratepayer's money for concessionary fares schemes. It does not make that subject to the other parts of the 1969 Act that troubled some hon. Members, the London Labour Party and the GLC. It is true that all the statutory powers of local authorities are subject to the fiduciary duties of ratepayers, which for many years all local authorities have owed to ratepayers, as the courts have said. It is not a novel doctrine, as the right hon. Member for Battersea, North keeps saying. It goes back 20 years or more.
When exercising their powers, the councils must consider their fiduciary duties to the ratepayers from whom they derive their revenue. The law is not only well understood, but can support a wide range of policies. It is not true that all councils, when exercising their discretion, are constantly taken to court by their ratepayers. I invoke in my aid the recent case on Merseyside. I willingly add to the praises of Mr. Justice Woolf who recently upheld my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport in his judgment on the Swanley-Sevenoaks section of the M25. He has come to some sound conclusions. The learned judge did not overrule the fiduciary duty point.
Merseyside, having addressed itself to fiduciary duty towards ratepayers, still found it possible to have a reduction of fares, which was within its powers

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: rose—

Mr. Clarke: I shall give way in a moment.
In the GLC case the Law Lords touched on fiduciary duty. Amongst other things, their Lordships drew a distinction between the duty in relation to transport, which is essentially a trading service, and other social services. They applied a stricter test to transport than they might have done to other social services, but the concessionary

fares schemes operated by councils have a clear social purpose and a clear statutory basis for every council. That will be so in the GLC.
It is tempting fate to say this, but I am not aware of anyone who has brought an action or who is contemplating bringing one. There is no serious prospect of anyone challenging a well thought out concessionary fares scheme introduced by councils that exercise the statutory powers that they have had for many years. Therefore, I do not believe that the Bill or the controversy about transport in London in any way justifies the political attack on the judiciary made by the hon. Member for York in discussing the obscure and extraordinary new clause.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: The Minister was tempting fate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) pointed out, in the Liverpool case Mr. Justice Woolf decided in favour of the local authority and against the complainant. But he was the judge of first instance. The judge of first instance decided for the GLC in the way that everyone else believed was the rule. The higher judiciary applied a political judgment. The hon. and learned Gentleman should come off it. Everyone recognises that it was a political judgment. It is about time that he did, too. There is a danger in encouraging the judiciary to follow that line. As a lawyer, he should be the first to recognise that it is a serious step for the judges.

Mr. Clarke: I was not expecting the outcome of the Merseyside case. The judge of first instance upheld the policy and said that it was not in breach of the authority's fiduciary duty. But, as I said, the Merseyside case is not directed to concessionary fares for the elderly or disabled. I do not believe that anyone since Prescott v. Birmingham Corporation—which was years ago and predates the legislation—has legally challenged the concessionary fares schemes. We are talking not about the position of the elderly and the disabled, which, I repeat, has never seriously been in doubt, but about the general legal position of the GLC in the extreme cheap fares policy that it is seeking, regardless of the cost to London ratepayers.
So far no one has strayed far out of order, and I shall not do so. Although we are allegedly talking about doubts about the position of the elderly and disabled, there is no party political controversy about it. The elderly and disabled always had a concessionary arrangement. and it will continue. That is not the problem. The right hon. Member for Battersea, North clearly illustrated the point. People are continuing to claim that there is confusion about the law in all areas to further the campaign to change the law more fundamentally to allow the GLC to return to the policy that it wants. There is no question of the Government being induced to change the law, nor of London ratepayers being overjoyed if the Opposition succeeded in going that far.
We are prepared to look at the general law if and when we reach the stage where we feel that we are receiving serious representations on it from the GLC and the London Labour Party. At present, the GLC has managed to put together a lawful budget and could get back to the task that it is meant to be engaged on of providing a sensible transport policy. No one thought that there was anything wrong with the law until the GLC broke it, following the elections last May. The law had not interfered with London's transport policy previously, and there is no reason why it should again.
The principal problem of those now carrying on about the Law Lords and the law is not that they are substantially in doubt about the law and the judgment; they know what the law means and they do not like it. They would like it to be changed to enable the GLC to spend ratepayers' money without limit. To get the law changed fundamentally they are continuing to claim that there is great confusion, that no one knows what he is doing and that the present law is causing nonsensical conclusions about the elderly, the disabled and so on.
Under the control of the Labour Party to get the law changed, the GLC insists that it is being driven to take silly decisions by the law, although it is often merely setting up Aunt Sallies. It claims that it has to take certain decisions, although in fact it is not bound to do so by law. For instance, until recently the GLC claimed that the 100 per cent. fares increase—100 per cent. is a scandalous increase—was to make up for inflation and to cover the dreadful losses incurred under seven or eight months of "Fares Fair". It then claimed that the law required it to raise fares this year beyond the 100 per cent. That provoked the Attorney-General's letter to make it clear that the law required no such thing.

Mr. Jay: On a point of order, Mr. Weatherill. If the Minister is proceeding to a general discussion about fares in London—which other hon. Members refrained from doing—it should be in order for us to reply.

The Chairman: Order. We must not have a general discussion. In the words, I believe, of the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon), the Minister is "getting round" to the amendment.

Mr. Clarke: I accept the reproof, Mr. Weatherill.
No one in County Hall should claim that the law requires the GLC to frighten pensioners and disabled people into believing that they might have their concessions withdrawn. That is not the case. If there ever were any doubt about the matter, the Bill will put it beyond doubt. The GLC has, in any case, already budgeted to provide a concessionary scheme.

Mr. Christopher Price: The Minister has had his little statutory go at the GLC. If it proposed a scheme of free fares for people suffering the disability of unemployment, would it be legal?

The Chairman: Order. That question is more appropriate for Department of Transport questions than for this debate.

Mr. Clarke: I accept your ruling, Mr. Weatherill. I should love to reply but the question is totally outside the scope of the Bill.
We are dealing with concessionary arrangements for the elderly and disabled in London. As I say, the Bill, as it stands, puts the position beyond doubt.
The policy of "Fares Fair", which Opposition Members have been defending, was particularly unjust to pensioners in London. Before the Law Lords judgment, when the cheap fares prevailed and the rates were supporting them, pensioners obtained precious little extra benefit. One quarter of London's heads of household are pensioners. All they derived from the new policy were minor additional concessions on the underground. They pay rates, so the massive rate demands meant that they were

paying more to subsidise the fares of the rest of the population. Yet, they were not obtaining the concession. The GLC's policy involved the transfer of money out of the pockets of pensioners into the pockets of younger people travelling on the buses and the underground. Therefore, it is particularly inappropriate for the Opposition to seek to reverse the effect of the Bill.

Mr. Frank Dobson: Even before "Fares Fair" came into operation, the GLC made considerable additional concessions for pensioners on the underground. I have not received one letter of complaint from a pensioner about the rate increases, but I have received a considerable number from pensioners and disabled people hoping that I will support the GLC's efforts to restore the law to what we all believed it was before the Law Lords decided that it was not. They believe that it is vital for London to have a low fares policy. The hon. and learned Gentleman certainly is not talking on behalf of the pensioners in my constituency.

Mr. Clarke: The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mr. Dobson) will have to address himself to the elderly in his constituency and persuade them that the modest concessions on the underground were worth the drastic increase in the rates bill that they experienced as a result of the GLC's policy. If pensioners tell him now, when there is no doubt about their continued entitlement to free travel, that they wish to see a cheap fares policy, I admire their altruism. They will be saying that they want to pay increased rates to allow the London Labour Party to use their money to subsidise the fares of wage earners, tourists and others from outside London.
The right hon. Member for Battersea, North suggested that he had support for his Ten-Minute Bill, and read a letter from the Rickmansworth and Croxley Green Farepayers Association. I am a poor provincial in these matters, and my knowledge of geography in that area is none too good, but I believe that Rickmansworth and Croxley Green are in Hertfordshire, not in the GLC area. The right hon. Gentleman is getting support for his measures and is being asked to change the law so that ratepayers in Battersea are allowed to carry on shelling out a great deal for commuters from Hertfordshire because those in Hertfordshire thought that it was good news to be allowed to travel on the backs of London's ratepayers. That is an odd position for the right hon. Gentleman to take up.

Mr. John Page: My hon. and learned Friend said that he was not a London Member, but I am a London Member and I can confirm everything that he said. I have received numerous letters from my pensioner constituents making this very point. Why should they subsidise business men and Japanese visitors to London from their rates in Harrow? My hon. and learned Friend has got it dead right.

Mr. Clarke: I agree, and I have no doubt that pensioners throughout London will be in writing to hon. Members, on both sides complaining about the next increase in rates planned by the GLC, even when its power to waste money on transport subsidies has been curbed to some extent. Pensioners in London were the main beneficiaries of the Law Lords judgment. They are the only beneficiaries of the Bill drafted and presented by the


Government. The new clause is an obscure and unnecessary addition. It is merely an attempt to keep alive an irresponsible campaign that suggests that there might be some doubt about the position of the elderly or the disabled in the future.

Mr. Booth: It is one of the less attractive tactics of the Under-Secretary of State that he says that he will not take drafting points as criticism of the Opposition and then proceeds to do precisely that, and in doing so he suggests that he could make many more criticisms of their drafting skills if he chose to do so.
The Committee will understand that one cannot answer criticisms that the hon. and learned Gentleman chooses not to make; I can only answer those that he has chosen to make. The two drafting criticisms of the Opposition's new clause are addressed to words that came from existing legislation. That, I think, he accepts. However, if the Government believe that it is not appropriate that those words in existing legislation should stand as the means of determining such statutory rights as there are to provide for concessionary services, it is for the Government to remove them from the legislation by their own proposals, and not for the Opposition to do so.
My hon. Friends have expressed worries as to whether new clause 2 is safe against further decisions of the Law Lords. I do not claim to have such drafting wisdom as would enable me to draft any new clause or amendment with the certainty that it would be judge-proof or court-proof. I can only urge my hon. Friends to read Kipling's "If' and to reinterpret it to mean, "If you can bear to see the words that you have drafted twisted by Lords to make a trap for the GLC, or any other Labour authority, then you will certainly be a man, my son."
There are serious problems, as my hon. Friend the member for York (Mr. Lyon) has said. However, ostensibly the Bill is intended to give the GLC the same powers as any other metropolitan authority to provide concessionary fares. The nature of the Bill is such that we cannot move a new clause or amendment that would impinge upon all other metropolitan authorities. We are dealing here with London. However, we can realise that in so far as London will be treated the same as other metropolitan authorities if the new clause is not passed, London fares are as much at risk from the Lords' decision as are those of the other metropolitan authorities.
Therefore, if we believe that the judgment of Lord Scarman that I quoted makes it clear that a fiduciary duty test can be applied against concessionary fares, we must try to protect the position of the GLC. The only new words that the new clause will add to the law, if it is passed, are those words which say that
it shall be the general duty of the Greater London Council
to promote the provision of services that deal with the needs of the elderly and the disabled. That goes further than the 1968 Act in relation to the rest of the metropolitan authorities.
I see a slight look of puzzlement on the face of the Under-Secretary so I shall refer him to section 138 of the 1968 Act, which is the appropriate provision. Nothing in that section says that there is a duty to promote or encourage provision of those services. To that extent it is different. I do not guarantee that our new clause is judge-proof or Lords-proof but it lays down a duty that the House should lay upon the GLC when it has the opportunity to do so, and which could serve it well in meeting the needs

of those who require special provision on London Transport as a result of their disablement or because of their special needs as elderly people.

Question put,  That the clause be read a Second time:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 125, Noes 155.

Division No. 79]
[5.35 pm


AYES


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Lyons, Edward (Bradf'd W)


Atkinson, N.(H'gey,)
Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson


Bidwell, Sydney
McCartney, Hugh


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
McCusker, H.


Bray, Dr Jeremy
McGuire, Michael(Ince)


Brown, Ronald W. (H'ckn'yS)
McKelvey, William


Buchan, Norman
McMahon, Andrew


Callaghan, Rt Hon J.
Mason, Rt Hon Roy


Callaghan, Jim (Midd't'n &amp; P)
Maynard, Miss Joan


Campbell-Savours, Dale
Mikardo, Ian


Cocks, Rt Hon M. (B'stol S)
Millan, Rt Hon Bruce


Coleman, Donald
Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)


Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.
Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)


Conlan, Bernard
Morris, Rt Hon C. (O'shaw)


Cook, Robin F.
Morton, George


Cowans, Harry
Moyle, Rt Hon Roland


Cox, T. (W'dsw'th, Toot'g)
Newens, Stanley


Cryer, Bob
O'Neill, Martin


Cunliffe, Lawrence
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley


Cunningham, G.(lslingtonS)
Palmer, Arthur


Davidson.Arthur
Parker, John


Davis, Clinton (HackneyC)
Pavitt, Laurie


Davis, Terry (B 'ham, Stechf'd)
Pendry, Tom


Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)
Penhaligon, David


Dixon, Donald
Pitt, William Henry


Dobson, Frank
Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)


Dormand, Jack
Price, C. (Lewisham W)


Dubs, Alfred
Race, Reg


Duffy, A. E. P.
Radice, Giles


Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.
Richardson, Jo


Eastham, Ken
Robertson, George


Edwards, R. (W'hampt'nSE)
Robinson, G. (Coventry NW)


Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)
Rooker, J. W.


English, Michael
Sever, John


Evans, loan (Aberdare)
Shore, Rt Hon Peter


Evans, John (Newton)
Silkin, Rt Hon J. (Deptford)


Field, Frank
Silverman, Julius


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Skinner, Dennis


Ford, Ben
Soley, Clive


Fraser, J. (Lamb'th.N'w'd)
Spriggs, Leslie


Freud, Clement
Stallard, A.W.


Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
Steel, Rt Hon David


George, Bruce
Stoddart, David


Grant, George (Morpeth)
Stott, Roger


Grimond, Rt Hon J.
Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Tilley, John


Hamilton, W. W. (C'tral Fife)
Tinn, James


Hardy, Peter
Wainwright, E. (DearneV)


Harrison, Rt Hon Walter
Wainwright, R. (ColneV)


Haynes, Frank
Walker, Rt Hon H. (D'caster)


Heffer, Eric S.
Watkins, David


Homewood, William
Welsh, Michael


Howells, Geraint
Whitehead, Phillip


Jay, Rt Hon Douglas
Whitlock, William


John, Brynmor
Williams, Rt Hon A (S'sea W)


Johnson, James (Hull West)
Wilson, William (C'trySE)


Jones, Rt Hon Alec (Rh'dda)
Winnick, David


Jones, Barry (East Flint)
Woolmer, Kenneth


Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald
Wright, Sheila


Kerr, Russell
Young, David (Bolton E)


Leighton, Ronald



Lewis, Arthur (N'ham NW)
Tellers for the Ayes:


Litherland, Robert
Dr. Edmund Marshall and


Lofthouse, Geoffrey
Mr. Allen McKay.


Lyon, Alexander (York)





NOES


Adley, Robert
Bendall, Vivian


Alexander, Richard
BenyonThomas (A'don)


Aspinwall, Jack
Benyon, W. (Buckingham)


Atkins, Rt Hon H. (S'thorne)
Berry, Hon Anthony






Best, Keith
Mates, Michael


Bevan, David Gilroy
Mather, Carol


Biggs-Davison, SirJohn
Maude, Rt Hon Sir Angus


Blackburn, John
Mawby, Ray


Boscawen, HonRobert
Mayhew, Patrick


Boyson, DrRhodes
Mellor, David


Braine, SirBernard
Meyer, SirAnthony


Bright, Graham
Mills, Iain (Meriden)


Brinton, Tim
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)


Brooke, HonPeter
Moate, Roger


Bruce-Gardyne, John
Murphy, Christopher


Budgen, Nick
Myles, David


Burden, SirFrederick
Neale, Gerrard


Butler, Hon Adam
Needham, Richard


Cadbury, Jocelyn
Nelson, Anthony


Carlisle, John (Luton West)
Neubert, Michael


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Newton, Tony


Carlisle, Rt Hon M. (R'c'n)
Normanton, Tom


Chalker, Mrs.Lynda
Onslow, Cranley


Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)
Osbom, John


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Page, John (Harrow, West)


Cockeram, Eric
Page, Richard (SW Herts)


Cope, John
Parris, Matthew


Costain, SirAlbert
Patten, Christopher (Bath)


Cranborne, Viscount
Pattie, Geoffrey


Dean, Paul (North Somerset)
Percival, Sir Ian


Dickens, Geoffrey
Peyton, Rt Hon John


Douglas-Hamilton, LordJ.
Proctor, K. Harvey


Dover, Denshore
Rathbone, Tim


Dunn, Robert (Dartford)
Renton, Tim


Durant, Tony
RhysWilliams, SirBrandon


Elliott, SirWilliam
Rifkind, Malcolm


Faith, MrsSheila
Roberts, M. (Cardiff NW)


Fell, SirAnthony
Rossi, Hugh


Fenner, Mrs Peggy
Rost, Peter


Finsberg, Geoffrey
Royle, SirAnthony


Fisher, SirNigel
Sainsbury, HonTimothy


Fletcher-Cooke, SirCharles
St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon N.


Fookes, MissJanet
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)


Fowler, Rt Hon Norman
Shersby, Michael


Fox, Marcus
Silvester, Fred


Garel-Jones, Tristan
Sims, Roger


Goodlad, Alastair
Skeet, T. H. H.


Gow, Ian
Speed, Keith


Greenway, Harry
Speller, Tony


Griffiths, Peter Portsm'thN)
Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)


Hamilton, Hon A.
Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)


Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Squire, Robin


Hannam, John
Stainton, Keith


Haselhurst, Alan
Stanbrook, Ivor


Hawkins, Paul
Stanley, John


Hawksley, Warren
StradlingThomas, J.


Hayhoe, Barney
Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)


Heddle, John
Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman


Higgins, Rt Hon TerenceL.
Thomas, Rt Hon Peter


Hordern, Peter
Thompson, Donald


Howell, Rt Hon D. (G'ldf'd)
Thorne, Neil (IlfordSouth)


Hunt, David (Wirral)
Townend John (Bridlington)


Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)
van Straubenzee, SirW.


Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick
Vaughan, DrGerard


Jessel, Toby
Viggers, Peter


Jopling, Rt Hon Michael
Waddington, David


Kilfedder, JamesA.
Wakeham, John


Knight, MrsJill
Waldegrave, HonWilliam


Langford-Holt, SirJohn
Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir D.


Lawrence, Ivan
Warren, Kenneth


Lennox-Boyd, HonMark
WatsonJohn


Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Wheeler, John


Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Whitney, Raymond


Lloyd, Ian (Havant &amp; W'loo)
Wickenden, Keith


Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)
Wilkinson, John


Lyell, Nicholas
Wolfson, Mark


Macfarlane, Neil



MacGregor, John
Tellers for the Noes


McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)
Mr. Selwyn Gummer and


Major, John
Mr. Ian Lang.

Question accordingly negatived.

Bill reported, without amendment

Motion made, and Question proposed,  That the Bill be now read the Third time—[Mr. Kenneth Clarke.]

Mr. Roger Stott: I shall not detain the House for too long. The Minister referred earlier to a number of points on which I should like to comment, but before I do so it is essential to reinforce on record what has been said by my hon. Friends—that in Committee only one Minister, one Conservative Whip and one Conservative PPS were present. That says a lot about the concern of Conservative Members for London fares.
The Minister claimed that the Bill was necessary because of the GLC's scaremongering about its legal ability to be able to fund concessionary fares. He sought to pray in aid a decision made by the Attorney-General to assure the GLC that the budget it had formulated for the forthcoming year was legal. Like my hon. Friends, I contend that the GLC did not find it possible to proceed with a concessionary fares policy because of the consequences of the Law Lords' decision. It was advised by counsel that there might be some dubiety about whether it was able to proceed as a direct consequence of what the Law Lords said.
In Committee, the Minister said that the Government had introduced the Bill to put beyond doubt the possibility that the GLC may find itself in legal difficulty. If there was no doubt, as we believe there may have been, there would have been no need for this legislation. Consequently, there must have been a doubt. Therefore, the Minister and the Secretary of State felt it right to come before the House to clarify the matter. As a result, we have made the case that such a doubt existed.
The Minister also said that a fiduciary duty was a non-statutory duty placed upon local authorities. That may well be the case, but anyone who does not exercise that fiduciary duty in the future could well be challenged in the courts. Therefore, while it may not be a statutory duty, it is quickly becoming a legal duty upon local authorities.
The local authorities do not only perform a fiduciary duty. They must also perform on business principles as well. As a consequence, London Transport is in great difficulty. The consequences of those two decisions mean that fares will double on 21 March.
In Committee, the Under-Secretary said that pensioners would be the greatest beneficiaries of the Law Lords judgment, but pensioners as well as everyone else in London will suffer considerably as a consequence of what has happened. Not only will fares be increased—I grant that pensioners will not have to pay them—but the Minister will recall that on Second Reading I outlined the withdrawal of services that will take place as a consequence of this decision. Some tube stations will be closed, there will be a cut in bus mileages, and less periodicity between buses. The pensioners will suffer just as much as the able-bodied and those in work.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) said in Committee that we cannot draft judge-proof legislation. We ought to rise to that challenge and at least attempt to draft legislation that is "Denning-proof". I hope that in future we shall be able to do precisely that.

Mr. Bidwell: Does my hon. Friend agree that, in addition to the effect on old people and those who enjoy concessionary fares or travel free in the off-peak period, off-peak period services are most likely to be drastically cut?

Mr. Stott: I wholly agree with what my hon. Friend says. He is as aware as I am of the paper, recently published by the GLC, which sets out in detail its view about the cuts in service miles and tube station closures, which will be dramatic. The entire travelling public in London will suffer as a consequence.

Mr. Christopher Price: I hope that my hon. Friend is successful in his attempt to draft some "Denning-proof' legislation. Before doing so, perhaps he should read Lord Denning's Dimbleby lecture, where he made it absolutely clear that in certain circumstances the judges had the right to overrule legislation passed by this House if they felt that it infringed what they considered to be the unwritten constitution of Britain.

Mr. Stott: My hon. Friend makes a fair point. I fundamentally disagree with what the learned judge said. The House of Commons, not the judges makes the law. In that regard, the incoming Labour Government will do everything they can to make legislation "Denning-proof' at the very least.
There is at present much misunderstanding about the law. There is also much confusion, not only in London Transport but among metropolitan counties. If any further successful legal actions take place, the incoming Labour Government will seek to amend this legislation and the 1968 Act so that there is no dubiety whatever and so that local authorities can use their judgment about the best provision of public money to obtain and pursue an integrated transport system.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I shall briefly respond to what was said by the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Stott). It was a pity that he began by criticising the absence of Conservative Members throughout our earlier debate on the new clause. I remind him that on Second Reading, apart from Front Bench speakers, 10 Conservative Back Benchers and six Labour Back Benchers took part. The fact is that the Bill as drafted places the position of the elderly and the disabled in London beyond doubt.
The fanciful debate that we have just had on the new clause was aimed more at the petitioning and the campaign outside than anything else. My hon. Friends did not pay the same close attention to that as they did to Second Reading.
I shall not get drawn into what has been said about lawyers and the law. I hope that the official Opposition, flushed with the campaign that is now taking place in London, will not be lead into some of the more irresponsible remarks about the rule of law and the role of the judges. When interpreting statutes, judges apply the law as it stands. They take the law to mean what it says in statute. They do not take it to mean what politicians say it ought to mean, did mean or wish it to have meant had they got it right. One should not change the rules of statutory interpretation in a hurry.
Although I know that at times we were joking during the earlier debate, we cannot permit the rule of law to proceed on the basis that we think good judges are those who find in favour of one's political allies and bad judges those who find against them. Where law is required, the House of Commons must make it clear.
The fiduciary duty applies to all local authorities. I trust that the Opposition will not sweep that aside. The

fiduciary duty to ratepayers, which is a common law duty on all local authorities, makes it clear that just because one has been elected to take control of a local council, one has not been given a licence to print money. Whatever policies are implemented, they must be within the law and the statutory powers of the council, and they must have some regard to the interest of the ratepayers from whom the money is being raised. Whether they are legal or not, I fear that too many Labour councils are forgetting the position of the less well-off ratepayers in the policies that they are now pursuing.
Now that we have legislated this year, we can return—this applies even more to county hall than it does here—to the real task of providing a sensible transport system for London. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport has made it clear that if there are long-term difficulties he is happy to discuss them with Kenneth Livingstone, with any other member of the London Labour Party, or with Sir Peter Masefield. We shall seek to resolve long-term difficulties. However, at the moment there is too much campaigning and political rhetoric, too many stickers all over the walls, and too many petitions. Far too much attention is paid to the joys of political campaigning and too little to the problems of administration and the needs of the passengers. People have come to power:in county hall who are better at campaigning than at administration and cannot cope with the serious tasks of a major transport undertaking.

Mr. Bidwell: One aspect of parliamentary life under the Government has been the increase in Select Committee work. A recent report on heavy goods vehicle testing by the Select Committee is not an abstraction; it is very pertinent to the value put upon this kind of parliamentary activity. What faith is there now in the Select Committee's long examination of London traffic problems and the ultimate report that is pending? What faith can the public have in the Government paying heed to such all-party work in the House?

Mr. Clarke: I assure the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell) that the Government will give serious consideration to the considered views of the Select Committee on transport in London. The Government will discuss the matter with anyone who wishes to give considered thought to the long-term position and will decide whether we have ideal transport arrangements in London.
As of now, the law has been clarified. The position concerning concessionary fares has been put beyond doubt. It has been possible to have a legal budget. It should be possible to run a sensible transport system. It was always possible under previous administrations of al colours until the changes that took place in May of last year.
The short-term emergency problems are substantial. The GLC had to double the fares—which we deplored—because it incurred such enormous losses during the period in which it ran an irresponsible low-fares policy. It is having to reduce the services, but when it came to power it increased the services, providing services for which there was no apparent demand. The right hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) referred to a collapse of services. That is a grotesque exaggeration. The amount of taxpayers' money going to London transport at the moment is equivalent to £170, 000 from every


constituency. The streets of London are full of empty buses between peak hours, and services are being provided with no regard to the true level of demand. A modest cutback would be more cost-effective and efficient. All of that is part of the main aim of putting behind us the nightmare experience of the first nine months of Labour rule before the Law Lords stepped in, making it possible to return to the sensible, cost-effective system that we want.
The Government will listen to all sensible and considered views about the long-term future of London Transport. It is a pity that the whole subject is now clouded by people who continually insist that the law is in doubt or are spending even more ratepayers' money on daft campaigning or expensive newspaper advertising.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Northern Ireland (Appropriation)

The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. John Patten): I beg to move,
That the draft Appropriation (Northern Ireland) Order 1982, which was laid before this House on 16th February, be approved.
The order, as always, is being made under paragraph 1 of schedule 1 to the Northern Ireland Act 1974. With all its technical references to Class this and Vote that, and the sums of money voted, it is almost inevitable that the contents of any speech introducing an order sound like someone reading at random from a yellow pages directory. However, to the people of Northern Ireland the financial provisions contained in the order—as the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Soley) knows only too well—are vital.
If the order does nothing else, it demonstrates to the people of Northern Ireland—represented in the Chamber this evening by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell)—the Government's clear commitment to the Province. I hope to demonstrate that clear commitment as I proceed with my speech.
The draft order provides for the appropriation of both the 1981–82 spring Supplementary Estimates and the sums required on account for 1982–83 by Northern Ireland Departments. These spring Supplementary Estimates represent the final adjustments to the spending plans of Northern Ireland Departments for the financial year now drawing to a close, as the plans were set out in 1981–82 Main Estimates and the autumn Supplementary Estimates. They were covered by the Appropriation (No. 2) and (No. 3) (Northern Ireland) Orders 1981, which were debated and approved by the House in July and December 1981.
As always, detailed information on the draft order is to be found in the Estimates volume and the statement of sums which are required on account. Copies of these, following the previous practice of this Administration and earlier Administrations, have been placed in the Vote Office. Further details are available in the explanatory memorandum which I have circulated to all hon. Members representing Northern Ireland constituencies, to the spokesman for the official Opposition, and to those hon. Members who took part in the last appropriation order debate.
I should like now to refer to the most important aspects of the draft order, dealing first with the 1981–82 spring Supplementary Estimates, which amount in all to £43·4 million. I shall return towards the end of my speech to the sums needed on account for the new financial year. These sums of money bring total Estimates provision for 1981–82 to £2, 388·2 million—a lot of money. Hon. Members will probably be aware that this does not constitute the total of public expenditure in Northern Ireland in 1981–82, since it leaves out of account non-voted public expenditure such as social security payments, capital provision for housing, and similar provisions. It means that the cash total for 1981–82 is in the region of £3·2 billion—not an insubstantial sum for the population of about 1·5 million people in the Province.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: The hon. Gentleman will, I am sure, concede that there is no other part of the United Kingdom for which the budgetary arrangements, and the arrangements of this House for voting money, result in a separate presentation of the total


sums which are being spent in that part of the Kingdom. If there were other such parts Northern Ireland, although special in many ways, would by no means appear as unique as it does at the moment.

Mr. Patten: I entirely accept what the right hon. Gentleman has said. It is, indeed, unique that for Northern Ireland we can separate out expenditure on a regional basis. His intervention permits me to say that we are able, because of the separate way in which the accounts are drawn for the Province, to demonstrate to the people of the Province—some of whom sometimes unnecessarily fear that we do not wish the Province well—just how well we wish the Province. We wish the Province well to the tune of £3·2 billion during this year. We wish the Province well to the extent of spending—I agree that it is fortuitous that we can isolate the figure—35 per cent. more per head on the people in the Province that we spend on the people in Great Britain.

Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) for bringing out those figures. Although hon. Members on both sides of the House and many people in the country support what the Government are doing in Northern Ireland, does my hon. Friend agree that, in view of the huge sums of money to which he has referred, all hon. Members would have cause for anxiety if they did not feel that hon. Members representing the Province were giving every possible support to the Secretary of State in his endeavours to improve the situation in the Province?

Mr. Patten: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. Needless to say, from time to time his views are echoed in other constitutencies. My hon. Friend's point about the importance of the devolution of some power and responsibility back to the Province would only be aided by a constructive attitude being shown by all 12 hon. Members who sit in the House for Northern Ireland constituencies, of whom, sad to say, only two are in the Chamber.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Ten hon. Members sit for the Province.

Mr. Patten: Not for the first time, I stand corrected by the right hon. Member for Down, South.
I return to the litany of money to be spent and on what it is to be spent. I apologise to the House if it sounds a little like the reading of Division lists late at night.
Under the heading of the functioning of the labour market—Class II Vote 3, hon. Members will see that a token Supplementary Estimate of £1, 000 is sought to give additional provision for demand-related grant schemes such as training on employers' premises, the temporary short-time working compensation scheme, the job release scheme and apprentice training grants.
Additional provision is required to fund a severance scheme at Belfast docks, on which agreement may be reached in this financial year—an important agreement if it is reached—and for the administrative costs of the industrial training boards until the end of 1981–82, pending the outcome of a review of their functions. That matter may be of interest to the official Opposition's spokesman.
Only a token Supplementary Estimate is required for that Vote, because sufficient savings to meet the additional

needs have occurred in other areas. They are fortuitous and include the budgets for Enterprise Ulster, for Government training centres, for the youth opportunities programme and for the shipbuilding redundancy payments scheme.
Those are shortfalls of expenditure on demand-related schemes. Such shortfalls can easily occur because of the difficulties of predicting. The savings have arisen mainly because of a slower than expected expenditure rather than because of any deliberate reductions in planned expenditure.
Hon. Members will be aware that expenditure under Class II, Vote 3 represents part of the Government's programme to do all that they can to strengthen the Northern Ireland economy and to alleviate unemployment. All hon. Members will realise that that alleviation of unemployment and that refurbishment of the economy are not things that Governments can do alone. They must be done in co-operation with the people of the Province. A permanent reduction in unemployment can be achieved only by an increase in the level of new and productive investment in Northern Ireland. The Government are determined to play their part in bringing that about.
I am pleased to be able to tell the House something of our plans in that respect. The House may recall that my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland—now the Lord Privy Seal—announced on 13 August 1981 that the institutional arrangements in this area were to be radically re-organised. That reorganisation was to centre on the setting up of a new Industrial Development Board.
I am pleased to tell the House that our plans for that we well advanced, and I hope that we shall be able to publish a full account of our intentions, along with proposals for draft legislation, prior to a debate in the Northern Ireland Committee, which we hope will be held later this month. It is for hon. Members to decide whether they wish to debate that concept today, but I suggest that they may wish to leave the discussion until the Northern Ireland Committee considers the detailed plans. The Government hope to announce the names of the new members of the IDB during April and we shall make that information known as quickly as we can.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: I am sure that there is no misunderstanding, but perhaps it would be as well to ensure that by emphasising that the debate in the Northern Ireland Committee would not necessarily render superfluous a debate on the order in its final form. I do not imagine that that was the implication of the Minister s remarks, but I thought it as well to make sure that there was no misunderstanding.

Mr. Patten: I am content to reassure the right hon. Gentleman that the circumstances that he sets out as a possibility will not occur. There will be a full debate on the draft order that sets up the IDB.
I have some sad news, of which hon. Members may already be aware. Earlier today my hon. Friend the Minister of State had to make a statement about the closure of the British Enkalon factory in Antrim at the end of the month. I can do no more than echo his disappointment at the loss of 850 jobs, especially considering the improvements in productivity and performance at the plant over the past six or seven months.
I hope that hon. Members will appreciate that Enka, the parent company of British Enkalon, took the closure


decision because it saw no prospect of viability for the Antrim factory in the longer term. The Government were prepared to consider further substantial—I stress "substantial"—short-term assistance, provided that Enka could see a genuine future for the factory, but we must reluctantly accept the commercial decision of the company. I know what distress it will cause throughout the Province and particularly in the immediate area where so many were employed in the factory.

Mr. Harold McCusker: Can the hon. Gentleman confirm that another company was interested in buying the plant and that Enka refused to sell because it wanted to kill off competition and reduce capacity in the industry? Can he assure us that Enka will not be able to strip the millions of pounds worth of equipment from that plant to furnish factories in other parts of Europe?

Mr. Patten: I have read the same press speculation as the hon. Gentleman has obviously read. Unfortunately, I am unable to confirm or deny whether it is correct. My hon. Friend the Minister of State will deal later with the machinery and plant in that relatively modern factory.

Mr. Clive Soley: The Minister said that he took the matter so seriously that he was prepared to give additional aid to the company if there were a commercial future for the factory. Is he now saying that he has not gone into the possibility that another company might have taken over the factory?

Mr. Patten: I cannot add to what I have already said. The Government made it known to the company that they would be prepared to consider further short-term, transitional financial aid to make it possible for the factory to remain open, provided the parent company thought that the plant had a viable future. Press reports about other companies that might have been interested are sheer speculation.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: The hon. Gentleman said that the Government were willing to give generous assistance. I heard on the radio that many small firms tied up with the De Lorean company cannot get any money. Dozens may go into liquidation, with hundreds of job losses. They say that the Government have not done anything and will not do anything, except to refer them to Sir Kenneth Cork, and that he offered them money to stop them from going into liquidation.

Mr. Patten: These are matters for the joint receivers, because there are two. This morning my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State met a number of managing directors and chairmen of companies in that position. The receiver has been put in, and all references must be made to him, and at this moment he is making valiant efforts to ensure an existence for the company, because upon its fortunes depend many other smaller companies.
I come now to those Votes in the draft order for which the Department of the Environment is responsible, and I shall refer to the most significant items within them. An additional £9·1 million is being sought on the roads programme, Class IV, Vote 1, largely to meet the cost of a variety of urgent small-scale works, including a number which are related to housing projects and to commercial activities. Approximately £1·1 million of the extra

provision is for repair of damage caused by rioting during the hunger strike last year, and for additional expenditure on street lighting because of increased electricity tariffs.
I want to say a further word on that subject. About £½ million of the £1·1 million is to be spent on undoing the damage that was caused in certain parts of the Province by riots during the hunger strikes last year. That £½ million could have been better spent on other more needed items. It is a tragedy that that money has gone down the drain. However, I suggest that we do not view the £½ million as a single sum related to last year's tragic events. It stands as a token, a surrogate, for the millions of pounds of inward investment that have been deflected away from the Province because of its image and its security problems. Apart from those millions of pounds, thousands of new jobs have failed to come to the Province because of the security situation. The £½ million is merely a token of the tragedy that has taken place in Northern Ireland during the past 10 or 12 years since the troubles began in their present form.
A recent editorial in the Belfast Telegraph,  I think, said that the people in the Province should realise that they themselves bear some of the responsibility for its economic problems. The responsibility cannot all fall on Her Majesty's Government and Opposition. If our hopes to devolve some measure of power and responsibility back to the Province prove acceptable to the people of Northern Ireland, the people there will take more responsibility for undoing the economic havoc of the last 10 to 15 years.
In the housing programme, Class V, Vote 1, net additional provision of £11·8 million is being sought. Hon. Members will be aware, from the announcement made on 6 January by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, that housing is regarded as the top priority within the social and environmental programmes for Northern Ireland, and I am pleased to say that the build-up towards the substantial increase in the housing programme announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already begun.
The Supplementary Estimate reflects an increase of some £17·3 million in the housing grant payable to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. This is partly offset by shortfall in other parts of the Vote, to give the net increase of £11·8 million overall. This addition of £17·3 million to the housing grant, combined with savings, on interest charges and related issues, in the Housing Executive's budget, will enable the executive to redeem in 1981–82 a £30 million bank loan, a substantial sum which would otherwise fall due for repayment in 1982–83. Were such a repayment to be postponed till next year, our efforts to secure the expansion of the housing programme could be jeopardised and the improvement in the conditions of the Northern Ireland housing stock which is not good, and reduction of urgent waiting lists would be delayed.
Hon. Members will realise that crucial to all this has been the Housing Executive's outstanding success in the sale of its houses to sitting tenants and the public expenditure resources which have been released as a result. Not only is the Housing Executive's record in this respect the best in the United Kingdom, but the vast bulk of sales are being financed by private funds, chiefly through building society mortgages. It would seem opportune for me to offer a word of appreciation to the building societies, which have responded magnificently to the encouragement which the Government and the


Housing Executive have given them to expand their activities in Northern Ireland, both in sales of executive houses and in the lower end of the private market—an area in which building societies previously found it rather difficult to operate.
I hope that, whatever we think about the selling of housing stock, all right hon. and hon. Members will welcome the role of the Housing Executive and the building societies in this context. The Government are pleased that the societies are continuing their support. I am sure that all Conservative Members will join me in congratulating my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on that splendid result.
The supplementary provision sought for the Department of Education in Class VIII, Votes 1 and 2, relates mainly to increased costs arising from the 1981 teachers' salaries awards, together with additional costs arising through the deliberate expansion of the education service input to the youth opportunities programme. Increases amounting to some £4·1 million on these Votes will be offset by decreases amounting to £1·3 million, largely resulting from revised estimates of provision required for a number of services.
The House cannot fail to be aware of the considerable recent interest in teacher numbers. This is a matter of proper concern to parents and people involved in education. I think it is well worth making the point that, despite the very considerable pressures on public expenditure generally, despite the many competing priorities within the Northern Ireland programme, and despite increased costs in education, pupil-teacher ratios in Northern Ireland have been maintained. The latest year for which actual figures are available is 1980–81, when the ratio in primary schools was 23·6 and that for the secondary sector 15·5. In 1978–79 the equivalent figures were 23·8 and 15·6. So there was in fact a slight improvement, albeit very slight. We expect that when final figures are available the resources being allocated to teachers in the current year will be sufficient to maintain pupil-teacher ratios at their present level, and the Government have already indicated that they will continue to attach the utmost priority within the education budget to provision for the teaching force during the next school year.
The next item concerns less expensive, but interesting, matters. The Supplementary Estimate for £0·8 million sought in Class VIII, Vote 3, relates largely to provision for district councils' capital expenditure on sport and recreation, where progress has been much faster than was expected at the beginning of the year. Provision is sought also to meet the cost of the reinstatement work at the Grand Opera House in Belfast following an unfortunate fire late in 1980 before the refurbishment was completed. I recommend hon. Members on both sides of the House who have never visited Belfast to go to the Grand Opera House, which is a magnificent building which has been magnificently restored and—

Mr. McCusker: And the Crown Liquor Rooms.

Mr. Patten: I shall mention the Crown Liquor Rooms shortly. I ask the hon. Gentleman to be patient. I recommend a visit to the Grand Opera House, which is a fine Victorian building, and to the entire area around the Opera House, which is much in the style of Victorian

centres of great cities on this side of the water, be they Manchester, Glasgow or similar cities which had a flowering in the nineteenth century.
There are many magnificent buildings and, as the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker) said, there is perhaps no more magnificent public house in the British Isles than the Crown Liquor Rooms, which is owned by the National Trust. It is immediately opposite the Grand Opera House. It was recently described—never let it be said that Northern Ireland Ministers do not always consider and properly research aesthetic matters—by the Architectural Review as the best surviving Victorian pub. The money that was spent on its refurbishment was well spent.
Provision is taken under Class IX in the Estimates for health and personal social services. In Vote 1 the increase of £5·1 million consists of £5 million for additional expenditure by the four health and social services boards in the Province on backlog maintenance and the replacement of essential equipment. An additional £100, 000 is asked for grants made payable to voluntary bodies in the health and personal social services sector. This is part of a scheme to promote voluntary work by the unemployed who wish to undertake such work. It is a scheme that we have been pleased to introduce during the financial year.
Under Vote 2 about £8·3 million is sought for demand-determined expenditure, which is mainly attributable to general medical, pharmaceutical and welfare food services, and to a shortfall on receipts from Health Service contributions. This is partly offset by savings on general dental and other services.
One of the problems that faces the Health Service in the Province, as on this side of the water, is the spiralling cost of many of the medical services and equipment which the Health Service uses. Very often these costs increase ac a faster rate than the rate of inflation.
Social security comes under Class X in the Estimates. Additional provision is being sought in two Votes. The first is family benefits, Vote 3, where the estimate of children qualifying for child benefit has been increased because of the growing tendency to remain at school beyond the minimum school leaving age. That is something that we should expect. The increase is partly offset by a reduction in the family income supplement estimate. The caseload is increasing—there are now more people in the Province receiving FIS than at any time since 1974—but it has not risen as much as previously predicted. Net additional provision for this service is £2·3 million. The other items fall into the administrative Vote. which is Vote 4, and increase the existing provision for computers and associated equipment by £150, 000.
In conclusion, I come to the other element of the draft order, which involves the sums required on account for the financial year 1982–83. These amount in total to £1, 075·4 million. It is necessary to have these sums made available to Northern Ireland Departments by the beginning of the incoming financial year to enable services to continue until the balance of the 1982–83 Main Estimates are debated and approved along with the next appropriation order. which will probably be in early July next year.
The sums required on account for 1982–83 are calculated on a basis that I shall explain. It is that 45 per cent. of the total provision in the previous year is taken for the services which will be contained in each Vote in the 1982–83 Main Estimates, taking account of the changes in


departmental responsibilities which were announced by the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my right hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Atkins), who is now Lord Privy Seal, on 30 July and 13 August 1981. The changes have already been the subject of separate draft orders. The sums required on account for 1982–83 are not definitive of expenditure plans for that year. However, expenditure during the next financial year must be about £3·5 billion, which is a great deal of money.
I do not know what that means to the people of the Province. It means to me—I return to where I began—that there is clear evidence of the Government's commitment, just like the previous Government's commitment, to the people of the Province, the well-being of the Province and the welfare of the Province. It is on those grounds that I commend the draft order to the House.

Mr. Clive Soley: As the Minister said, the order needs to be taken in the context of the state of the Northern Ireland economy. As I and my right hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) have said, that economy is in a desperately serious condition. When we visited the Province recently with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition it was clear that the greatest fear of all the parties, the trade unions and the Northern Ireland CBI was the collapse of the industrial base to a point from which it would not recover even if there were a recovery in the British and World economies. That fear runs throughout the political and economic life of Northern Ireland. Everything that we say today is relevant to that aspect.
The Government's policies are not working, and they are not even relevant to Northern Ireland as they are being implemented. I shall say something about that in relation to British Enkalon.
There is a need for a significant shift in Government policy. That shift should begin with an increase in the money that is made available through the order. That is not because we believe that we can solve the problem by throwing money at it. We believe that more money is needed in certain key areas and that those areas need to be well considered, well planned and responded to positively.
We all know that insecurity in Northern Ireland is the enemy of peace and progress and that it has economic as well as political roots. However, the order provides no evidence that the Government intend to act decisively on the growing fear of unemployment in Northern Ireland. The problem must be seen in the context not just of the overall figure of one in five of the working population now unemployed, but of selected areas. For example, in Strabane almost 50 per cent. of the working population are unemployed, in Dungannon the figure is more than 40 per cent., and in Newry, Cookestown and Londonderry one in three workers is out of a job.
More money should be put into construction and new technology. The Minister should listen carefully to representatives of the CBI on the advantages of investing in bioengineering. Above all, Government money should be used for high risk investment. That was the policy of my right hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield when he was a Minister in the Labour Government.
Some people are critical of De Lorean and one or two other ventures but there is no doubt in my mind or in the

minds of all political parties—with the possible exception of one—and of the CBI in Northern Ireland that the Government should be involved in high risk investment ventures if there is to be a recovery in the Province's economy. Redundancies in January alone were 1, 100 at De Lorean, 900 at Shorts—a successful company until it was hit by the Government's high interest rates—400 at Mackies and a threat of more than 2, 500 redundancies at Harland and Wolff. I intended to add to that list the threatened loss of 850 jobs at British Enkalon, but that threat is now a fact. Having heard the Minister's reply to the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker), I am profoundly worried that there is a lack of political will by the Government to intervene effectively in the economy of the Province.
If it were known that the Minister was prepared to do anything sympathetic to help British Enkalon, but the company still said that it was not commercially possible to continue, I could understand that. But the Minister said that he did not even know of the rumour that someone might be prepared to take the company over. In those circumstances, at the very least we are entitled to ask why he did not know. To whom did he talk? Did he discuss the matter with the trade unions? Did he ask them whether they thought that someone else could take over the company? Did he ask the management whether another company could take over? Did he ask other relevant industrialists or industrial groups whether a takeover was possible?
If there is to be political will, the Minister must fight his corner for the people of Northern Ireland. If a company or a factory is to close, he must be sure that no one could be found to take it over. That is vital. There is a growing feeling among Opposition Members and the public in Northern Ireland that the Government lack the political will to involve themselves in the economy to the extent of keeping companies going by finding other options, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield when he was a Minister.
The Government must show that they have the will if they are to be taken seriously by the people of Northern Ireland. In that respect, they should consider the Labour Government's record. The Labour Government were infinitely more successful in taking high-risk decisions to keep up employment than the present Administration.
The Government should also examine the Quigley report. Before finalising proposals for the industrial development board, I hope that the Government will do as I understand the trade unions have advised and make the board an entrepreneurial agency, free from Government and bureacratic restraints and able to become involved in high-risk investment.
The Government seem to be saying—the Minister implied this—that part of the fault lies with the people of the Province. They say that they will do what they can but that ultimately they will do only so much and then withdraw. That sounds as though the Government intend to leave Northern Ireland to free market forces. Even the CBI says that that will not work, that high-risk investment must come from somewhere, and the only source is the Government. We know that, for political and economic reasons, it will not come from the private sector.
I hope that the Government will consider encouraging links between the industrial development board and the industrial development authority in Southern Ireland. That would work towards a more balanced economy and be


beneficial to the whole of the island. Bearing in mind the way in which the Southern Irish Government have advanced in the production of chips, there is an argument for bioengineering in the North as the two are complementary rather than competitive. In the long run, complementary industries in both agriculture and manufacturing could do a great deal to revive the Irish economy.
The Government are proud of the £90 million boost that they say could produce another 5, 500 jobs. That hardly makes up for the cuts in services over the past two and a half years, and it may never repair the damage caused by the reallocation of resources since December 1980. The extra £90 million is both a vindication of the Opposition's arguments and a recognition of the Government's past mistakes. The Minister and his colleagues should go back to the Cabinet and make it clear that that sum is insufficient for Northern Ireland and that, if they are to prevent the problem worsening, they must provide more. If £90 million extra can be justified for Northern Ireland to do something about employment, as the Minister argued, the Government would be well advised to examine closely the economic theory that they are applying to the rest of the country. What is good enough for Northern Ireland is good enough for the rest of the United Kingdom.
The Minister could also intervene effectively in energy pricing. There is no real provision for that in the order. Energy prices should be on a par with the lowest rather than the highest in the United Kingdom, which is all that is guaranteed. Part of the problem for Northern Ireland is that energy prices are well above those in the mainland and are compared only with the highest. Will the Minister undertake to try to achieve that in the 1982–83 appropriation order?
Both industrial and domestic users face a problem. It is perhaps not well known that the electricity company in Northern Ireland installs load limiters to cut down the supplies to users who are in debt. If they use more than a fixed quantity of electricity—say, 10 amps—a switch-off mechanism is triggered to prevent the consumer from getting into further debt. As a result, if a family turns on the fire because it is cold and then wants to heat water or to cook, the chances are that it cannot do so. One or more of the electrical appliances must be switched off, or the supply will be cut off. The heating, the cooking or the hot water facility is cut off. That is a common problem, and it is caused not least by high energy pricing and rent policies.
People in Northern Ireland suffer from low incomes, high energy prices and high rents. I was there recently and met a delegation of tenants' representatives. They said that it was not that they objected to paying debts or returning to the conditions of the 1930s, but that ordinary decent people on low incomes were unable to pay their bills. That is reminiscent of the 1900s. That is a real and serious criticism of the Government.
One way to demonstrate social and political will would be to do more on the proposed gas pipeline from Kinsail in the South to the North. In the long run, that would help both the construction industry and domestic prices.
I note that none of the £90 million is going towards new capital investment in housing. At the same time, we recognise that one in six of the unemployed in Northern Ireland is a construction worker. In answer to parliamentary questions recently, the House was told that the rent rise was necessary to pay for the additional

housing to be brought forward. The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Mitchell) said:
The hon. Gentleman is mistaken in thinking that the increase in the rents will be spent on building more houses in the affluent areas of Northern Ireland. Half of the new building will be in Belfast."—[Official Report,  25 February 1982; Vol. 18, c. 979.
That is fine, but not something which should be subsidised out of rents. In a letter to the Housing Executive the Minister said:
I accept that the Board would prefer not to increase rents but the choice is starkly between an increase in the Board's rental income which can be used to finance bigger expenditure or a reduction in spending and in the programmes.
That punishes people in public sector housing—the most vulnerable group—by making them pay a large part of the capital programme out of current expenditure. That is unacceptable, although one recognises that there must be some element of it.

The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. David Mitchell): I think that the hon. Gentleman is mistaken. He is assuming that the reference in my letter to the chairman of the Housing Executive was to the capital programme. I referred to "programmes", in the plural. If the hon. Gentleman considers it carefully, he will realise that the real problem was whether the Housing Executive could generate sufficient funds from rent increases and from its own resources to carry out its maintenance programme without raiding Government moneys provided for newbuild purposes.

Mr. Soley: I accept the Minister's point. I shall look at the matter again. Nevertheless, as I said recently, there was a 26 per cent. increase in rents the year before last and an 11 per cent. increase last year, and there is to be a 22 per cent. increase in April this year. That rate of increase is well ahead of inflation, so it must be placing an unfair burden on people in the public housing sector in Northern Ireland. People on low incomes already facing high energy prices and high rents cannot take on an additional burden of that magnitude without running into heavy debt problems.
One area in which the Government could get the Northern Ireland economy moving again is housing construction, which they were prepared to hold back when they first came to office. It will take some years for the public housing sector to recover from the effects of that policy.

Mr. John Patten: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh".] I apologise for that Freudian slip. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is not yet a Minister, although I hope that at some future time he may enjoy the fruits of office.

Mr. James A. Dunn: If he joins the SDP.

Mr. Patten: Yes, indeed. I wish to ask the hon. Gentleman about his attitude to public debt in the Province. He said that the policies of the fuel authorities, linked with the social security system, are adversely affecting people on low incomes. He now says that council house rents are too high. Does he realise that public debt in the Province is now more than £35 million? What are his proposals for dealing with that?

Mr. Soley: That cannot be regarded in isolation from the British economy as a whole. It is a matter of Government policy. The Opposition have made the point


time and again that in a recession there is a strong case for increased public borrowing. Other measures would be needed as well, but that is one. I should be prepared to give extra benefit to Northern Ireland. The Minister, in opening, said several times that Northern Ireland was receiving a great deal of money and that that demonstrated the Government's commitment and so on. What the House must recognise, however, is not the amount of money being given but that Northern Ireland's problems are so severe as to require a far greater effort than is now being made, because economic and political progress in the Province are linked.

Mr. John Patten: Does that mean wiping out the debt?

Mr. Soley: No. I accept that we should have to carry a greater debt for Britain overall.
It will take some years for the public housing sector in Northern Ireland to recover from the capital spending freeze of the past 18 months. Rent increases are excessive and the most vulnerable groups are being asked to pay for a capital programme which is not acknowledged as a structural problem for Northern Ireland as a whole. Many people are falling into the poverty trap and they are unable to pay the rent.

Mr. David Mitchell: I did not intend to intervene again—and I apologise for doing so—but that is the third time that the hon. Gentleman has talked about rents being increased to pay for the new building. I should be grateful if, in the rest of his prepared speech, he would take on board the assurance that I have given that that is not so.

Mr. Soley: Yes, up to a point; but the Minister is surely not saying that none of the increase is involved in that. As I understand it, he is saying that a great deal of it is. He seems to be quibbling about the extent and wording of the letter to the chairman of the Housing Executive, but he does not seem to be denying that some of the rent increases will go to the capital programme. I shall be happy to give way if he wishes to place it on record that none of that money will go to the capital programme.
The Opposition are far from satisfied, particularly in the light of the news from British Enkalon, that the Government have the political will to put right the economy of Northern Ireland. Their attempts to justify their policy, especially on housing, energy, employment and the revitalisation of the basis of industry, are evidence of that. Unless we begin to get that right, I cannot see their proposals for political progress being successful. We must accept that the more the economy runs into trouble and the higher the level of unemployment, the greater will be the difficulty in achieving political progress in the Province.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: The Minister referred in opening to the sparse attendance in the Chamber at the commencement of the debate. He must have been gratified to realise that, before he had made a great deal of progress with his speech, I was joined by all the other hon. Members belonging to the Ulster Unionist Party, with one exception. It is an exception that I do not think has ever happened before in any debate on an appropriation order since appropriation orders began in 1972—namely, that of my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux).
All parts of the House are aware that when a by-election is imminent there tends to be a certain division of the effort of hon. Members. If 25 per cent. of the available effort of the Ulster Unionist Party has today been diverted in the direction of the Province and the election to take place there later this week, that is not a high proportion compared with that experienced by the House on previous occasions when by-elections have taken place elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
It was, however, a particularly unhappy coincidence that on the first such occasion on which my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South was absent, the Minister made the announcement that he had to make about the British Enkalon factory in my hon. Friend's constituency. It is because of the determined efforts made in the past by my hon. Friend in collaboration with Ministers that that undertaking was and is still operating in Antrim today. But for steps taken over previous months at the urging and insistence of my hon. Friend, it would not be there. Even now, with a deadline of 15 March, I do not believe that my hon. Friend will accept that we must sit down under the situation in which we have been placed by the firm's decision.
Listening to the Minster, one might almost look with envy upon those employed by a firm which, as a separate undertaking, could be bankrupted and would therefore be available for purchase and revitalisation by somebody ready and willing to do the job. I say this here and now, and I know that I say it on behalf of my colleagues and of my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South: we shall not take it lying down if, through a dog-in-the-manger attitude, British Enkalon insists on closing and stripping its plant in Northern Ireland when there exists the commercial possibility—and we have heard that there exists the Government will—to keep it in operation. There is at least a fortnight to go. We will not take this lying down as it has been served up to us today.
An exchange of a financial character occurred between myself and the Minister early in his speech when he said, with a certain rhetorical flourish—perhaps that is, if not the pot calling the kettle black, at least the silver vase calling the cream jug bright—that total expenditure was £3·2 billion and would, for the coming year, be £3·5 billion for the Northern Ireland Departments, and other public expenditures in the Province. He said that that was an indication of the good will and determination of the rest of the Kingdom towards the Province. Well and good. However, we ought to realise that a similar statement could be made—if there was separate accounting and budgeting—for many other parts of the United Kingdom. One could say that £X billion was an expression of the good will of the rest of the Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, to County Durham, Glamorgan, or to any other area that one chose to select.
It may be, on a per capita basis, that the figures, although not comparable statistically with any we have for the rest of the Kingdom, would be high. So they should be, in view of Northern Ireland's difficulties which have already been highlighted. However, it is wrong and misleading—I know that I have the Minister's cooperation in correcting this misunderstanding—to isolate Northern Ireland as if there were a sort of net tribute of £3·2 billion being paid to it by the rest of the Kingdom. That would be a misrepresentation of the truth that the United Kingdom as a whole carries the burdens of all parts of the United Kingdom, wherever they may be situated.

Mr. John Patten: Of course I accept the logic of the right hon. Gentleman's arguments. It is difficult for many hon. Members not always to accept the logic of his arguments, particularly because of the way he puts them. However, I did not make such play of the net sums given to the Province because I do not accept that one could make equal play with net sums disbursed in the direction of Scotland or Wales. I did that because there are those in the Province who mistakenly seem to suspect that the British Government may be involved in preparing to sell out the Union in some way. Surely no Government intent on that course would spend such large and, indeed, increasing net sums in the Province.

Mr. Powell: The logic of that statement might be subject to some examination and qualification. However, I intended to refer to the part of the Minister's speech when he said, because the United Kingdom is spending £3·2 billion in Northern Ireland, that the people of Northern Ireland were somehow under an obligation to support whatever might be Her Majesty's Government's current policies in the Province. No section of the House accepts that reasoning in any other part of the United Kingdom. Just because we recognise that certain sums are spent in County Durham, in the South-West, or in Scotland, we do not, thereby, feel bound to accept uncritically—as if it were a result and a price to be paid—whatever the policies of the current Government might be.
The Minister gave an extensive disquisition on the contents of the motion. If it did not appear to be entirely novel to all his hearers, that was because of the relatively full information on the financial facts behind the order, which had, as is customary, been supplied to interested hon. Gentlemen. Nevertheless, he succeeded in making an inherently rather dry subject interesting and, occasionally, even amusing. It might be said of his speech, as was said of an ancient orator, that "he touched nothing that he did not adorn". I intend to touch on only two of the main heads of expenditure in this order; for I feel that our debates on these orders are probably more fruitful if speeches concentrate on a relatively small number of major topics. I shall take housing and education with particular reference to teacher training.
It is true that one phase succeeds another in the operations of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Certainly, as the Minister said, the large success achieved in the sale of Housing Executive houses and the major effect that has had on its finance have had a marked impact on the Executive's operations
It is not surprising that the policy on the sale of Housing Executive houses in Northern Ireland—inaugurated by the previous Government, as will be confirmed by the right hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon)—has proved so popular in Northern Ireland. There is no part of the Kingdom where the desire for ownership of even the smallest quantum of real property is so passionate or so deeply knit into the social structure, as it is in Northern Ireland. The policy was purpose-built for Northern Ireland. It has given a great deal more financial latitude and strength to the Housing Executive.
One notes that year by year the Housing Executive's centre of gravity and operations tend to shift. In particular, as one who represents a rural constituency in Northern Ireland, I can now definitely discern the achievement of something which I have called for repeatedly in past years: a programme which, within a foreseeable time, would

ensure that all the Housing Executive's houses were brought up to the minimum acceptable level of amenity. A great deal of that task in the rural areas has been fulfilled, and we now have a sort of time scale, not extending too far into the future, at the end of which we can look forward in those areas to that particular task being accomplished.
However, those who learn about Northern Ireland learn that there are two places: one is Belfast, the other is the rest of Northern Ireland. I am afraid that my remarks about the rest of Northern Ireland, about the rural areas similar to my constituency, are certainly not true of Belfast. I place emphasis on the large areas in the city of Belfast where redevelopment and renovation lags behind the sort of timetable which the people living there ought to be able to see. There are far too many areas of streets in which one finds a few people still managing to live in unimproved houses with, on either side of those houses, dozens more bricked up. That is miserable for them and an indication of a task the accomplishment of which is at any rate not visible on the horizon of the people affected who are living in those areas.
I hope that the Government will ensure that the Housing Executive from now onwards gives that same sort of determination and priority to the renewal of those areas of the capital city which it has given to the renewal of its housing stock in the rural areas. In this task, it ought to be receiving more assistance from the work of housing associations. Once again, my hon. Friends and I emphasise the role that ought to be played by the housing associations in the renewal of the housing stock. It is therefore depressing to read in the explanatory memorandum to the order that, under class V vote 1, some of the increases were offset by reductions of £2·2 million
mostly as a result of fewer projects by Housing Associations reaching completion and a consequent reduction in the grants payable".
We would have much preferred the opposite to be case and to have read that this House was being asked For an increase under that class and vote because the housing associations were getting ahead faster than had be en anticipated. It is in the areas which I have described, such as the Donegall Pass in Belfast—all hon. Members, many better than I, can put names to them—that the Housing Executive and the Government have failed to use 'he potential energies of the housing associations, along with those of the Executive itself for this task.
We therefore ask that before we have to consider another appropriation order we should be able to see ahead a definite programme, capable of being completed within a comprehensible period of time, to carry out the renovation that so sadly lags in the streets of large areas of west and south Belfast.
The other aspect of housing on which I should like to dwell is maintenance. There has been a considerable reorganisation—not the first— in the last two or three years in the structure of the Housing Executive. In some respects, I believe, the reorganisation has produced good results. I was sceptical for instance at first of regional control, but I believe now that it has exercised a beneficial effect upon the whole administration of the Housing Executive's operations. One thing however that is still absolutely wrong and where the organisation is clearly defective is maintenance.
Yet there is no area where it is more important to get matters right. Of all the issues most sensitive and most


central to the landlord-tenant relationship—which, after all, is that of the Housing Executive to a substantial minority of people of Northern Ireland—maintenance and the availability of repairs, as and where necessary, are about the most crucial. There is a bureaucratic's expression, "response maintenance". That is what I am talking about.
There are phased maintenance plans, as there have to be for purposes of efficiency, whereby one estate after another is taken in a rota and all maintenance aspects there dealt with at the same time. What is missing is the ability to respond when necessary to the needs of individual tenants. Far too frequently, constituency Members for Northern Ireland—I am sure that this will be borne out by all hon. Members representing the Province—are confronted with totally indefensible and often inexplicable delay in remedying defects in houses, defects that have been repeatedly brought to the attention of the Housing Executive by the tenants.
There has to be some change in organisation that will put the responsibility where it ought to be—with management. Of all managerial functions, this is, in some ways, the most important. It is certainly the most sensitive. Yet all of us, who have to cope with these problems of our constituents, know that the district management and even the regional management is, in some way, at arm's length from maintenance. The word "response" might be an example of lucus a non lucendo. There is talk of "response" maintenance, but "response" there too often is not.
This is specially to be deplored when, as the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North, (Mr. Soley) reminded the House there have been three successive major increases in rent in two years. These have not been restricted, admittedly, to the rents of Housing Executive houses. They have been mirrored by similar increases in the permitted levels of private rents. Nevertheless, we are now talking about the Housing Executive, and it is indefensible for the Housing Executive to be piling one rent increase on another while unable to carry out the most basic response maintenance and repairs to the property of the tenants whose rents are being raised.
I suspect that the Housing Executive is failing in control over its contractors. All the work, in one way or another, is done by contract. I am sure that I am not the only hon. Member who has the impression that the Housing Executive fails to exercise the supervision that it should, either over the execution of the contracts or of the manner in which the property is left after contracts have been carried out. One is speaking here on behalf of the weak versus the strong. Too often, one finds the tenant of a house where the contractors have, at any rate partially, done the job for which they are being paid by the Housing Executive and have left the house, if not in an uninhabitable condition, at any rate, a condition that calls for considerable expenditure on the part of the tenant.
Over and over again, it proves difficult to the point of impossibility to get either from the Housing Executive or, through the Housing Executive, from the contractor, compensation for damage and dilapidation that should not have occurred in the first place. So not only does the maintenance organisation as a whole need to be tuned up and brought into closer relationship with management but the supervision of the performance of maintenance

contracts also leaves much to be desired. I hope that this matter can be dealt with before hon. Members come to the next of these orders.
The other major topic with which I wish to deal is that of teacher training. The interim report of the Chilver group has I suppose, excited more comment and controversy during the last eight or nine months in the Province than do most reports. It appeared at the tail-end of the summer. Since then there have been three interim statements by the Government on the subject of teacher training. But a decision by the Government is still to come, and it is therefore worth while bringing this topic into the debate.
My hon. Friends and I believe that the Chilver recommendations fail to recognise the realities and are, to a dangerous degree, impracticable.
There is no doubt that the present teacher training organisation is uneconomic. One reason for that is the fall in the demand for teachers, due to the fall in the actual and prospective school rolls. But this is not, as is sometimes suggested, the only reason why the present teacher training structure is uneconomic. There is another. In the past few years, the number of teacher training organs in the Province has multiplied and multiplied again. As a result, the pre-existing organs have been partially denuded of the demand that would have enabled them to utilise their capacity more effectively.
While we must recognise that teacher training in the Province calls for reorganisation, we must also understand that that must be carried out realistically and in a manner that corresponds with the facts in Northern Ireland.
We could not say from these Benches that the proposal to amalgamate the two Roman Catholic colleges is neither right nor necessary. After all, successive reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General for Northern Ireland, which have been cited in such debates as this for the past five years, have drawn attention to the increasingly uneconomic use of resources by those two colleges. Neither the Government nor the House can resist the requirement that the colleges should be amalgamated into one organisation.
Another factor is easily left out of view. Stranmillis—the non-denominational state teacher training centre—is a unique institution of higher education in its own right. Its reputation is probably higher than that of any comparable institution in the United Kingdom, and its importance in the Province and in its educational system can hardly be overestimated. Any reorganisation should therefore preserve what Stranmillis stands for—it is a name to conjure with—and ensure that while Stranmillis can work at full capacity, nothing is done to diminish its special characteristics or virtues.
A third factor is that there are too many teacher training centres. There are relatively at least twice as many teacher training centres in the Province as in the rest of the United Kingdom. That obviously means that resources are distracted and that there is under-use of the human and physical capacities available.
Those, then, are the three underlying facts: first, the two Roman Catholic colleges should be amalgamated so that they are placed on an economic basis; secondly, we must retain the function, status and level of Stranmillis; thirdly, owe should diminish the diversity of teacher training sources in the Province.
From those basic requirements the wrong deduction is drawn by the proposal—against which we caution the Government—that everything in Belfast should be rolled


into one, on one site, as the Belfast Centre for Teacher Training. It is a deduction both unrealistic and prejudicial to the interests of teacher training. My hon. Friends and I believe that in principle our Roman Catholic fellow citizens in the Province should have exactly the same rights and opportunities as they enjoy in the rest of the United Kingdom. They have as much right in the Province as on the mainland to have their children educated in Roman Catholic schools. From that it follows that, as far as economically practicable, a proportion—possibly a high proportion, although not all—of Roman Catholic student teachers should have a right to separate Roman Catholic training. That would undoubtedly be prejudiced by the creation of a brand new teacher training centre for Belfast that would embody Stranmillis, the department at Queen's university, Belfast, and perhaps other colleges.
In one of their interim statements, the Government say:
Each of the partners in the Centre could maintain a separate legal and administrative existence.
That does not happen in real life. A brand new centre that embraced and brought together all those elements would not allow them to retain a separate existence in any natural sense of the term. I stress that there is already a great deal of community and interchange between the Roman Catholic colleges and Stranmillis. It is easy to exaggerate the argument that when institutions are amalgamated, some new form of co-operation and rapport comes into existence between the different strands of training.

Mr. James Kilfedder: The logical conclusion of the right hon. Gentleman's argument is that the increasing number of Roman Catholics who go to Queen's university for their teacher training are not as competent to teach in Roman Catholic schools as those who go to St. Mary's and St. Joseph's. That is obviously untrue.

Mr. Powell: It is strange to say that because Roman Catholics attend Stranmillis and the department at Queen's university, so the Roman Catholic church cannot justify maintaining specifically Roman Catholic teacher training establishments in Northern Ireland as it does in the rest of the United Kingdom. That is no logical deduction. However, the hon. Gentleman has drawn attention to an important point. It might well be thought that at present there is some sort of wall of separation; but the hon. Gentleman has demolished any such imaginary wall by pointing out that Roman Catholics are not absent from the teacher training given at Stranmillis and at Queen's university, Belfast.
The vice-chancellor of Queen's University put his view of the project of amalgamation in a manner that cannot be bettered. He said:
It is nevertheless our firm view that the basic concept of the Belfast Centre is unacceptable: it is academically undesirable in itself; it provides small if any scope for further evolution or development; it will become irreversible; it is damaging to the interests of this University; and it represents an aberrant cul-de-sac
—if vice-chancellors were capable of mixing metaphors, I should think that that might be one—
from, and not an acceptable stage in, existing development.
That effectively sums up the case against the false deduction that is being drawn from the fundamental features of the situation.
I would also like to quote a distinguished member of the staff at Stranmillis on the relations between the Roman Catholic colleges and Stranmillis. He writes:

For many years our colleges have exchanged students, shared staff, taught common syllabuses, marked each other's papers, and enjoyed the warmest collaboration possible.
It is a false lead to imagine that that situation will be improved without more than corresponding loss if there is to be amalgamation of the existing Belfast centres of teacher training into one new centre.
I leave this subject and the order with one further plea in the context of the reorganisation of teacher training. When teacher training was reorganised in recent years on the mainland, specific undertakings, specific arrangements, were made in advance to cope with any redundancies of staff that would occur in the process. Indeed, those undertakings greatly facilitated the reorganisation of teacher training facilities on the mainland. I believe the Government would be well advised to make similar arrangements and to announce them at an early stage, whatever decision they propose to come to on the Chilver interim report.
So we say to the Government: "Do not destroy what you have got, for you will not compensate for it by the proposal to create a brand-new centre in Belfast." That would be a typically false deduction from what undoubtedly has to happen—the reduction of the number of centres of teacher training, the preservation of Stranmillis and all that it stands for, and the maintenance of a provision for Roman Catholic teacher training. The result of wrapping them all up into a single new institution would be one that cannot be better described than in the words of the vice-chancellor of Queen's University.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: I hope that the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) will forgive me if I do not follow him, as he spoke about too many detailed subjects of which I have little knowledge.
I shall confine my remarks to the sums granted under part II, Class II, of the order, items 2 and 3. Article 3(2) authorises the issue of moneys out of the Consolidated Fund for 1982–83 to the tune of rather more than £1 billion. As my hon. Friend the Minister said, that is one third of the moneys that will be required.
A fortnight ago I was in Northern Ireland and saw something of the industrial scene. I met the chairman of the CBI and leaders of the Northern Ireland committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. They made me aware of their gloom about employment prospects in the Province and their doubts about future prosperity. This evening's news about British Enkalon will have deepened their gloom, as it has deepened mine.
I do not follow my hon. Friend the Minister's argument that a devolved Assembly in Northern Ireland would mean that the employment situation would be different or that industrial prospects would be brighter. The companies that have gone out of business—Grundig, Rolls-Royce at Dundonald and now British Enkalon—have done so because of market conditions and perhaps because they were peripheral to the main operation of the business.
British Enkalon is living in a world where the market for man-made fibre has suddenly gone. It is not reasonable to argue that if there were a devolved Assembly in Northern Ireland such things would not happen. That would be no more reasonable than to say that Short Brothers and Harland and Wolff have found themselves in difficulties that they would not have had if the Assembly had existed. Short's is suffering because the Tristar


programme has ended and because the North American market for small airliners has recently gone into recession, as much as anything because of the air traffic controllers' strike, which is still unresolved. Harland and Wolff cannot insulate itself from the slump in world shipping.
Therefore, we must see the Northern Ireland economy, not as something unique and special, but as an economy that must survive in world conditions; one that can be successful and able to cope with those world conditions, and to compete and price itself in a way that makes its goods as attractive as those produced in any other part of the United Kingdom.
I sometimes wonder whether anyone has given enough thought to the home market that Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland provide for certain goods and whether those goods are being given enough attention. The overall home market is about 4 million people, or 1½ million in the North. It is too easy to bring in products the market for which is outside Ireland or the United Kingdom, but if one does that one places one's money on long shots. If my criticism of De Lorean is anything, it is just that. That company's product had no home market, yet it was built in Northern Ireland.
I hope that in future when investment is made more thought will be given to building up indigenous industries that will have a market on the doorstep as well as elsewhere in the world, I am glad that the Irish linen industry has managed to survive and that it may have a brighter future than any of us can perceive.
I welcome the further financial assistance that is listed in the order for Harland and Wolff. Those who run the company are bringing a new realism to its affairs, which it has badly needed for too long and which offers it the best chance for its future that it has had for many a long day. The company has reduced its operating expenses by about £2 million per annum. It expects to be able to make further substantial savings in the future.
By the end of the year the company hopes to be able to quote prices comparable to those offered by Japanese shipbuilders. At present it is quoting prices that are among the lowest in Western Europe. That is a transformation in its affairs that few of us would have dared to prophesy as recently as a year ago.
I pay tribute to Dr. Wadsworth, the chairman of Harland and Wolff. He is doing a superb job for that company, which seems to have a brighter future than any of us would have dared to believe possible, but, as I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister is aware, it has a short-term problem of seeing itself through the next one or two years. That means having sufficient orders to give it a viable future.
I make no apology for special pleading. The 170, 000-tonne bulk carrier for British Steel is a vessel the importance of which for the future of Harland and Wolff can hardly be overestimated. Not only will the ship provide badly needed work until the end of 1984, but—let us not forget this—it will provide an order for British Steel of 6 million tonnes of steel. That order has a double benefit for the British economy.
Harland and Wolff is equipped and has the expertise to build the ship. I hope that my hon. Friend will not allow that order to go elsewhere because of the lack of adequate credit facilities for the company, particularly as he will be aware that such financial assistance is available to

shipbuilders throughout the world from their Governments. Therefore, it will be difficult to resist providing soft credit for Harland and Wolff, if that will make a difference to the company getting the order.
It would be wrong to claim that the yard depends on only one order, but equally wrong to suggest that it has a future if it cannot bridge the next one or two years. Not only are 5, 000 to 6, 000 jobs in the yard at stake, but many others throughout the Province hinge on the success of Queen's Island.
I am surprised to hear that British Shipbuilders buys none of its engines from Harland and Wolff. Harland and Wolff is now on a three-day week for engine making. British Shipbuilders chooses to buy engines from the Government works at a price much greater that it needs to pay. I wonder why pressure has not been put on the company to look to the other nationalised shipbuilding industry—Harland and Wolff—which is referred to in the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act, in which there is a passage that suggests that the two should act together in bidding for orders and living within the same economy.
The second issue that I wish to raise comes under item 2, Class II, of part II. Between now and 31 March 1983, as the Government have told us, at least £1 billion will be made available through the Department of Commerce to assist industry. None of us yet knows how the money will be spent. Is it so unreasonable to suggest that some of it might be needed to refinance the De Lorean motor car company after Sir Kenneth Cork has completed his work of salvaging the company from its financial difficulties? At some stage, presumably in the near future, he will report to the Secretary of State about his attempt to salvage the company. No doubt he will state what he believes are its chances. The Government may have to reconsider providing finance. If they do so, presumably they will use this item as the means.
Ahead of that moment, and as £80 million of public money is invested in the project, could the Minister of State clarify the exact role of Sir Kenneth Cork as receiver? He has been appointed by the Department of Commerce in its capacity as a debenture holder. The Department provided a loan of £6·718 million towards the cost of factory construction, as well as grants of £28·468 million. However, it is not a shareholder, as is the Northern Ireland Development Agency, nor has it any nominated directors on the board. Thus the Department's request for the receiver is marginally curious.
For whom is Sir Kenneth Cork acting? Is he acting for the Department of Commerce, the taxpayer overall and the taxpayer's investment, whether as a secured creditor or in terms of NIDA as a shareholder, or is he acting for the unsecured creditors—the suppliers?
As has been mentioned, on the tapes this evening it was stated:
More than 50 companies supplying the troubled De Lorean car plant in Belfast could collapse within a week, Ulster Secretary James Prior heard today. Directors fearing for their firms' future told him De Lorean owed its 158 Northern Ireland suppliers between £20 million and £25 million.
On whose behalf is Sir Kenneth acting?
Perhaps Sir Kenneth has a different remit—to save the De Lorean motor car company in Northern Ireland more—dare one say it?—as an act of social goodness than for financial reasons. If so, can the company be reconstructed free of its American parent, the John Z. De Lorean Corporation, and can it regain its rights over the


unsold cars in the United States? Is Sir Kenneth in a position to renegotiate the financing agreement between the De Lorean corporation and De Lorean Motor Cars to ensure a higher return on each car sold than the present £185 per car for the first 90, 000, which is a return of only 1·32 per cent.? It is not exactly clear who Sir Kenneth is acting for and what his objectives are.
I end by coming back to the concept of inward investment. De Lorean was held up as a shining example of what inward investment might be. No one would wish to take away from Mr. De Lorean or his managers credit for creating a car factory in about two years on a green field site, equipping it, training the staff and completing the car. But if at the end of the day all that we have are unsold cars in America, people in Northern Ireland deeply disillusioned and the taxpayer £80 million worse off, we must ask whether such a risk investment is the way to give Northern Ireland's economy a prosperous and long-lasting future.

Mr. James A. Dunn: I, too, compliment the Minister on the way that he introduced the order. I have experienced the difficulties of introducing orders from the Front Bench. I appreciate the problems that beset one from all directions, which, even with the best briefing, may be unforeseen.
I have not seen the memorandum, although I appreciate the fact that it was sent to those who should have received it. I am speaking in place of a colleague who would normally speak on the subject for the SDP.
The Minister gave the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Soley) advice on how he might change his political thoughts. It is surprising how many people are giving good advice these days. I hope that he will give advice in other places, not least in Scotland, in the near future.
The hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson) drew our attention to the problems of De Lorean. In an intervention the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis) drew attention to the problems that small firms are suffering in the aftermath of the first financial collapse of De Lorean. If they do not get immediate support, they may not overcome their difficulties. Merely to say that the receiver and others should direct their attention to such problems does not meet the requirement for urgent attention.
I hope that a reconstituted De Lorean will be a success. I share the disappointment about its difficulties, and I hope that they will be overcome. If the difficulties are to be overcome, the suppliers will need to be able to provide the services and small parts that are required for the manufacture of this unit. If the suppliers are not rescued immediately, De Lorean, even reconstituted and with renegotiated financial conditions attached to its trading, will be purposeless.
These are urgent and immediate needs. Unless they are dealt with in a special way, the problems that will flow from them will not be easily overcome. As well as the provision of the equipment for De Lorean the employment prospects and the loss of the small pockets of skills required to produce small component parts will be devastating to the prospects for De Lorean and for the Province as a whole.
I compliment the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) on the excellent way in which he dealt with

the question of teacher training that I had wished to bring to the notice of the Minister. His clarity could not be misunderstood and the purpose of it could not be misinterpreted. I may say that he put it far better than I, because he did not have the liability that I have as a practising Catholic, who might be accused of self-interest.
I shall reinforce what the right hon. Gentleman said in another way. Communications are not as good as they might be. Whoever is responsible for that should turn his attention to it immediately to overcome what I can foresee as a major barrier to other negotiations which are probably at a sensitive stage. The Catholic teacher training colleges have, over many years, provided the type of teacher wanted by Catholic schools. I can understand and accept the argument that an amalgamation of two Catholic colleges may be justified on economic grounds, and probably on a wider spectrum if it were to be dealt with in greater detail. But there is the problem that if one went to a centre of excellence—I use those words advisedly—for teacher training, there would be reluctance and reservation almost immediately and any prospects that the excellence would be justified would be put in jeopardy.
I appreciate that the Chilver review made certain recommendations and the Government have consulted as widely as they believed necessary, but they have not gone far enough. There is misunderstanding and an element of mistrust creeping in to these delicate problems. I plead with the Minister to call together the interests of St. Mary's and St. Joseph's colleges and perhaps other diocesan education authorities to see whether the misunderstanding can be cleared away and whether there is any prospect for continuing with an amalgamation of the two existing colleges. Perhaps that would be the time to deal with the suspicion and rumour that abound in the Province that, at the end of the day, either the Stranmillis site or the Queen's university will be called upon to absorb the work of St. Mary's and St. Joseph's teacher training colleges.
I offer this as a warning, not as a threat. If that ever happens, anything that may be forthcoming from the Secretary of State's discussions for a devolved Government are doomed from this moment. This may not be significant or apparent to many people, but once distrust has been created at that level, the future is bleak when one wants confidence for such a major matter as devolved Government. I say that in all good faith and with good intent. I hope that the Minister will ask his colleagues, under the leadership of the Secretary of State, to look again at the matter.
I turn quickly from that matter, in which I could be accused of having a personal interest, to the statement made by the Minister about the expansion of Enterprise Ulster. I welcome that small expansion. Does the Minister agree that there is probably much more room to deal with. the problems of unemployment by using the agency of Enterprise Ulster and its market capacity to establish more small-based craft industries and to exploit them? There is not only Irish linen but other indigenous craft groupings. Even in small pockets, they would probably generate sufficient interest to encourage other people to share in what could be a pleasing prospect for the Province.
I must chide the Minister on what has not been done in any tangible form for the enterprise zones. Great promises were made for them throughout the United Kingdom. It may be that there has been more work done for enterprise zones in Northern Ireland than in any other part of the United Kingdom. If that is so, it is not apparent to me, and


others share my view. A great deal more energy and activity could create the right base for industry at a subsidised level that would attract industries from the rest of the United Kingdom to share in some joint ventures.
De Lorean has been criticised as not being the right high-risk venture to relieve some of the Province's economic problems. However, I fail to see how, on the one hand, one can say that De Lorean was unsuccessful because the indigenous population were not using the product, and, on the other hand, welcome Harland and Wolff building ships for which there is no call. Harland and Wolff is not building the right kind of vessel for Northern Ireland any more. I shall go no further, as the point has already been made.
There is some future with enterprise zones. If the Northern Ireland Office were to take more land and change some of its use, I am sure that will be the best place for building advance factories and providing the incentive for industry. Even those who might be in jeopardy from De Lorean might seize the opportunity of making some other product and using the skilled manpower rather than seeing it disperse before their eyes.
I draw attention to the amounts included in the appropriation order for ferry services. I hope that the Liverpool-Belfast ferry will not fall into disuse. That would be disastrous. If most of the avenues of transport between the Province and the mainland were restricted to those provided by Cairncross and by air, many difficulties could ensue. There is an extremely valuable service between Belfast and Liverpool which serves the hinterlands of both Merseyside and Belfast. In the event of problems over financing a reconstituted company—and there may be some difficulties—I hope that the Minister will feel that he should intervene and possibly offer some financial incentive, even on a short-term basis, to enable that ferry service to continue.
On Class I, which deals with agriculture, I remind hon. Members of one important factor. It is that recent decisions of the Northern Ireland Office have not been very helpful to agricultural marketing. There are great prospects for Northern Ireland's agricultural produce, not only in Europe but in this country. Government-supported agencies helped to promote the produce and also helped the producers to realise the real potential of marketing. They also gave training on how best marketing could be achieved. That is no longer being done in the same way. I believe that the time has come when the Northern Ireland Office should intervene in agricultural marketing to protect the base for the processing of agricultural produce. Meat is very important, of course, but there are other products, too. I have in mind vegetables, such as carrots, onions and potatoes, cleaned and prepacked. All this takes a great deal of organisation, and a great many of the smaller farms have not got the necessary resources, even with the general development and co-operative agencies which have been established in recent years.
Again, I appeal to the Minister to review what has happened in the recent past. To sustain the marketing potential for agricultural produce, perhaps the time has come to recreate what was once a very successful venture.

Mr. James Kilfedder: There is not a shadow of doubt that the economy of Northern Ireland is

in a very serious and precarious position. The hon. Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Soley) expressed the fear that the industrial base could collapse unless the Government took action to save it. With unemployment so disgracefully high and with bankruptcies occurring at an alarming rate, greater action is required from the Government. In view of that, the Minister's speech was disappointing, because it did not hold out hope of any great change for the Province.
The shipyard needs an immediate order for a bulk carrier and orders for at least three engines if it is to be kept in being on its present limited scale. The De Lorean suppliers, especially the small companies in Northern Ireland, need to have what is owed to them paid by the Government by one means or another. Many of the small companies are in jeopardy of closing if the money owed them by De Lorean is not paid at once. Surely the Government could make an ex gratia payment to the Ulster suppliers or provide credit arrangements to enable them to survive. Help needs to be given soon, otherwise more people will be thrown on the unemployment heap. As we know, already the unemployment level in the Province is a disgrace to the Government of any country.
Last Monday, I led a deputation of the Ulster Popular Unionist Party to discuss with the Secretary of State his proposals for devolution. My deputation pointed out to the right hon. Gentleman that, after 13 years of terrorism, Ulster was barren industrially and politically and that only an imaginative programme of economic and social regeneration would produce lasting results. The Minister is deceiving himself if he believes that the existence of a Northern Ireland Assembly on its own—without any administration—will help resolve the industrial and economic problems of the Province.
It is clear from the veto which will be given to the SDLP that a devolved administration may not be established. Indeed, I predict that if that veto is maintained, as the Secretary of State intends, a devolved administration in the Province will never be established. It is heartless to tell the Ulster people that they will have elections for an Assembly before long if it is not to lead to the devolved administration which they seek so eagerly to help resolve some of their problems. An Assembly on its own will not resolve the problems of the Province. A Stormont Assembly would be a mere talking shop without responsibility and without any expectation of the parties having to implement their own manifestos.
I was interested to hear the warning—the threat—issued by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. Dunn)—

Mr. James A. Dunn: It was not a threat.

Mr. Kilfedder: —when he spoke about the Roman Catholic teacher training colleges. He said that if the Government did not heed the demands of the Roman Catholic church for the continued existence of St. Mary's and St. Joseph's colleges on their present sites, the plans for devolution for Northern Ireland would be destroyed. That was the clear warning from the hon. Member for Kirkdale, who represents an English constituency albeit that he is the SDP Member of Parliament for it. None the less he echoes the voices which have been raised in the vicious campaign to which I referred a short time ago in questions to Northern Ireland Ministers.
I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) has left the Chamber, because it was an


extraordinary sight to see him, the hon. Member for Kirkdale and the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) banded together in a small brotherhood trying to save the Roman Catholic teacher training colleges in West Belfast. It was an extraordinary sight, but it goes to show that if one waits long enough, anything can happen in politics. However, in my view they are wrong, and I hope in due course to show that they are wrong.
I refer briefly to the amount of money that we are discussing. This is the first time for many years that the Spring Supplementary Estimates are largely for services or their extension in the Province. Usually they are accounted for by salary increases. They come before the House close to the end of the financial year, after the full impact of the annual salary increases has worked through the system and the full cost is known.
The Department of Education is the main Department requiring additional funds to meet increased salaries for teachers. Some of the increase is for the additional teachers who are to be employed in the further education colleges on an expanded youth opportunities programme which is to become an element in the new comprehensive programme.
Among the 16 to 17 age group in Ulster, unemployment has increased 350 per cent. since 1974. Around 16, 000 young people are out of work. The Government's proposals to guarantee a year of education and training to school leavers aged 16 is welcome, but it is too little and almost too late.
It is heartbreaking to see our young people—the future of the Province—leaving school to join the dole queue. It is a tragedy to see their hopes dashed and their lives blighted just when they wish to prove their worth. It is a tragedy for which the Government must take some responsbility.
A total of £3·4 million is sought for this year to meet the increased cost of teachers' salaries in the planned schoolteacher complement. No one can be complacent about the manner in which existing teachers are being treated. The new primary school at Killinchy in my constituency, which will replace five rural primary schools—that is, if it goes ahead despite local opposition—will employ two or three teachers fewer than the existing schools.
That is a reduction in the teaching force and has nothing whatever to do with declining school rolls. It is the direct consequence of moving children from their local schools, where they are perfectly adequately catered for, to a large central school. I believe that is merely to satisfy the whims and dictates of those officials of the South-Eastern education and library board who occupy offices in Windsor Avenue. It is high time that the wishes and needs of local people were heeded. Officials should do the job that they are supposed to do—to serve the people. The people are not there to serve the board and its officials.
Saintfield grammar school, also in my constituency, has been put under pressure to reduce staff by one to two teachers at a time when its very existence as a grammar school has been questioned. The education board does not seem prepared to discuss these vital education and social issues in the context of the local community. The boards approach these human and important questions as though they were dealing with a computer programme. They should be reminded by the Minister that people are not automatons. The boards exist to serve the people. It would be scandalous if Saintfield grammar school were closed,

because, as I have pointed out in lengthy letters to the Minister, it is the centre of the community and, as the record shows, provides the best education for the children of the area.
If the school is closed, the children will have to make long journeys in a country area where transport to the next available school is difficult. I urge that the school should not be closed, and I ask the Minister to give such an assurance tonight. I repeat my demands regarding the local schools that are under threat of closure as a result of the establishment of the central primary school at Killinchy. It will be a disgrace if those schools are closed. The Minister should stop these plans and look at what is happening in the Killinchy area.
Brooding over Northern Ireland's education system is the dead hand of sectarianism. Northern Ireland has a dual system—part Protestant and part Roman Catholic. Until that divisive system is replaced by a single system that caters for children of all religions or no religion, there will be no chance of bringing the community together.
There was a slight hope in the early 1970s. I mention that in view of what has been said by the right hon. Member for Down, South and the hon. Member for Kirkdale. I know what the hon. Member for Belfast. West will say about the Roman Catholic teacher training college. In the early 1970s, there was a slight hope that Roman Catholic children would be allowed to mix with Protestant children and attend common nursery schools. That hope was dashed. The might of the Church prevented the coming together of little toddlers—not students waiting to train as teachers. What sort of crime is that? The might of the Church prevented the coming together of children of a tender age as if some terrible sin might be committed by fraternisation at a nursery school.
That must be remembered when we listen to arguments about the continued existence of St. Mary's or St. Joseph's or, indeed, Stranmillis itself. I would abolish all three, and locate teacher training at one or other of the two universities. There is a great need to provide something that will ensure the continued existence of the new university of Ulster. If the Government allow that university to close, they will be guilty of a terrible blunder that will not lightly be forgiven.
When that glimmer of hope of little toddlers coming together in a nursery school was sadly extinguished by those who possess the ghetto mentality, there was little hope for change in Northern Ireland unless the Government were prepared to act. This Government and their predecessor acted on other matters over which there was controversy in Northern Ireland. It behoves the Government to have courage and the strength of character to get rid of sectarian education in Northern Ireland.
This is where I praise Chilver. I know that the right hon. Member for Down, South criticised Chilver. I think that he was wrong. His argument rang false. Chilver has provided a further opportunity at the other end of the education process—in higher education.
Teacher training is the last remnant of sectarianism in higher education in Ulster. I hope that the Government will heed the demands from so many people, including Roman Catholics, to grasp this difficult problem and to show imagination and courage. I say courage, because already the outcry of discrimination has gone out by those who seek to maintain the ghetto mentality, which has ruined progress in Northern Ireland.
Not long ago, the leaders of the minority were falsely claiming that the Northern Ireland minority was forced to live in ghettos by the Stormont Government. The present campaign, including the Chapel collection of signatures, proves conclusively that today some people wish to see the minority remain in ghettos for a long time ahead. It is for the Government to take the shackles off the Ulster people, be they Protestant or Roman Catholic, and to set them free. If they get rid of this religious apartheid in education, the Government will receive the thanks of all decent, liberally-minded people in the Province and elsewhere.
Indeed, it is refreshing to note that more and more students attend university for teacher training, including more and more Roman Catholic students who wish to rid themselves of the trammels of St. Mary's and St. Joseph's. As I have said so often in the past, it is time to clear away Stranmillis, St. Joseph's and St. Mary's so that all student teachers get their instruction at one of the two universities. Let the Churches give them religious instruction in hours to be provided. There is plenty of opportunity for them to be—I do not know what the correct word might be, but some people might use the word "brainwashed". There is plenty of time for the Churches to educate the students in their own religions.
I am intrigued by the £9, 000 addition required for the Commissioner for Complaints. It seems that a reluctant civil servant was compulsorily transferred to the commissioner's office at a cost to the taxpayer—advance of salary and removal allowances—of £9, 000. I presume that because it is described as an advance of salary it will be recouped in due course. However, the removal allowances come to an incredible £4, 000. Where has he been removed from to enable that claim to be made for removal expenses? I am sorry to hear that service in the commissioner's office is unpopular and that staff are not prepared to volunteer for duty there.
I have always found—I wish to put it on record—that the commissioner's staff does an excellent job. I have referred many cases to the commissioner and to his associated office, the Parliamentary Commissioner, for investigation. In my experience, both the present commissioner, Mr. Kernohan and his predecessor, Mr. McGonagle, have conducted themselves admirably in what must be a difficult task. It is very easy to overstep the bounds of what is sensible and reasonable when dealing with complaints from aggrieved persons who have suffered—or think that they have suffered—from the consequences of maladministration. The Commissioner for Complaints handled their complaints about political and religious discrimination far better and inspired far more confidence in the impartiality of the judgment than the Fair Employment Agency which is now doing the work. Perhaps the reason is that the commissioner has no political axe to grind.
The draft order provides for a £5½ million addition to the four health and social services boards. The eastern health board, whose operations cover my constituency, is unable to bear the cost of bringing 80 additional beds into use in the Ulster hospital at Dundonald. The beds have become available for other uses because there is a new geriatric unit at the hospital and the elderly long-stay patients are to be moved to the new unit. There would be no real problem if the Department of Health had not stepped in with an unbelievably harsh expenditure policy.
The Department told the eastern board that it could spend its capital expenditure allocation on buildings, extensions, renovations and essential repairs to old Victorian hospital buildings, but could not have extra money to service the new facilities. It was told that it would have to find the extra finances out of existing funds.
I have not yet known a rule of administration that did not have built-in exceptions, and so it is with this rule. It seems that the Department of Health will make an exception where
the revenue requirement is grossly disproportionate to the board's revenue resources".
In other words, the more costly the revenue consequences of a particular capital programme, the more likely it is that the board will get the additional money that it needs to run it. On that basis, the board should have no problem in meeting the untold revenue consequences of that white elephant, the tower block at the Belfast city hospital. It has cost £46½ million so far and it is likely to cost £55 million before it is completed. The Minister might think it is worth while to make a statement tonight about how that cost accumulated, what justification there is, and whether the medical profession is totally dissatisfied with the tower block.
There has been a total waste of taxpayers' money. The eastern health board has not even attempted to work out how much it will cost to run the tower block. As it is being brought into commission, the revenue consequences will soar to astronomical heights, and because the tower block cannot be seen to be a white elephant—according to the Government's interpretation—the Department of Health will rush to provide the additional funds that will be needed.
As a result, funds that are vitally and urgently needed for the rest of the area covered by the eastern board will not be available for the hospitals. I am thinking of Newtownards, Bangor and Crawfordsburn in my constituency of North Down. What about the 80 extra beds at the Ulster hospital? To bring them into use will cost £1·4 million at 1980 prices—about £1¾ million at 1982 prices. As the board does not have the money to enable the beds which are needed to be brought into operation, what is to happen?
The board produced a paper which showed that it proposes to close Crawfordsburn hospital and to transfer the patients—all of them elderly—to Bangor hospital, which would then become a geriatric hospital instead of a small general hospital. It is also proposed to run down the Ards hospital. Three hospitals in the eastern board area—which has one-fifth of the population of Northern Ireland and the fastest growth rate—are to be devitalised. These hospitals are to suffer in order to pay for the heavy expenditure on the tower block at the city hospital, for the Mater hospital extensions, for all the extensions provided at the Royal Victoria hospital in Belfast, and for the work carried out at the Musgrave Park hospital.
According to the eastern board, the closure of Crawfordsburn hospital would save £600, 000, and the rundown of the Ards hospital about £1 million. The board has not yet been able to estimate how much would be saved by changing the nature and character of the Bangor hospital. Presumably it would be about £200, 000.
The purpose of the proposals is to provide savings to help pay for the expensive work being carried out in


Belfast. The people of North Down have been made to suffer for work that was not totally necessary in the hospitals in the Belfast area.
In North and West Belfast, 35 miles away, we have the largest congestion of big hospitals in Northern Ireland—almost next door neighbours. There is the vast 1, 000-bed Royal Victoria hospital. There is the 200-bed Mater hospital, where a £10 million expansion scheme is taking place. Additional beds for gynaecology are to be provided there, yet there are empty gynaecology beds available almost next door, at the Royal Victoria hospital. Eight miles away there is the sprawling Musgrave Park hospital. Four miles away the new tower block of the city hospital rises above the black stone buildings of the old hospital.
In my area of North Down, the cost of a bed is £450. In West and North Belfast, it costs from 50 to 100 per cent. more to provide a bed. Perhaps the Minister will be able to explain the reason for that. Obviously, there is something wrong. There is a scandalous waste of money. If savings are to be made, they ought to be made in North and West Belfast. The medical and non-medical staffing ratios in North and West Belfast are appreciably higher than those in the North Down area.
The North Down and Ards districts of the Eastern board have always kept within their annual budgets, but North Belfast and West Belfast are notorious overspenders. A well-known Ulster civil servant, long retired, has had to be brought back in order to head an inquiry into the consistent overspending of North and West Belfast. It is time that the Minister responsible for the Department of Health stepped in and brought the whole sorry mess into some semblance of order and administrative propriety. It is manifestly unfair that an attempt should have been made to run down the North Down hospitals because the Government lack the courage to reduce the overspending in North and West Belfast.
To those who say that West Belfast is a deprived area and needs more money, I say that it does not have a monopoly of deprived families. With 300, 000 people in the North Down area, we have far too many living in circumstances of social deprivation. To attempt to remove their local hospital services, such as they are—I could not speak too highly of what is provided by the eastern health board—is a criminal act. I hope that the Government will intervene now that the board has made a decision on this matter a few days ago.
I know that it is a large and a difficult task to reallocate beds among a number of medical specialties. The board is struggling to achieve the impossible. Government spending plans for the West Belfast hospitals force the board to spend too much in that area, and leave insufficient funds for the expanding needs of North Down. The result is a disastrous choice of options with which the board cannot deal. The board needs an undertaking from the Government to provide additional funds to cope with whatever number of the 80 beds at the Ulster hospital are deemed essential for the hospital services in the area.
After months of pressure from public opinion, the eastern health board decided at a recent meeting to reconsider its proposals, but the commitment goes no further than a review of the whole area. My sister, Alderman Mrs. Gladys McIntyre who is a member of the board, has fought hard to get that decision reversed, but

as she has pointed out to me, £1¾ million is required to meet the running costs of the 80 additional beds in the Ulster hospital.
The only solution is for the Minister to intervene, as the eastern health and social services board has exhausted every permutation for saving money apart from the imposition of drastic cuts in the Belfast area where the hospitals have expanded at the expense of North Down.
Before leaving that topic, I would point out that the hospital services provided in North Down are not of the standard that ought to be provided for the people of that area. We need better hospitals in the area and I will continue to return to that subject until the board and the Government act to give a fair deal to the people of North Down. At the moment they are being discriminated against. That is something against which they protest, arid they protest volubly in the House through me.
As I have often pointed out, the Housing executive is a heavily centralised and bureaucratic body which is top-heavy. Following the organisation and method report of the Department of Finance a few years ago, which recommended that six regions should be established in Northern Ireland, that number of regional controllers were appointed by the Housing Executive. The regions are far too large for any single controller to look after effectively.
Despite the existence of six regions, there is a lack of competition between them. The Housing Executive needs competition. If we are not to have competition between the executive and builders providing homes for sale or to rent, the executive must provide its own competition. I urge the Government to provide greater independence for the regions to meet local needs within their allocation of funds and to judge each region against the others to see whether it is doing a worthwhile job, building the houses that are needed, renovating properties where required and maintaining them at a reasonable standard.
That is the only way to judge the executive. I fear that it is not doing the job that it could do. Much paperwork is passed around the headquarters in Belfast, which seems to get most of the money. The local staffs of the executive have to bear the brunt of the work and they are left in a position that makes it difficult for them to satisfy local needs.
Houses in Manse Road, Newtownards, were badly flooded not long ago. I was not surprised, and those who know the area were not surprised, because there has been flooding there for generations and it has got worse over the years.
That fact was not known to those who bought the expensive houses in Manse Road. Most of the purchasers put all their worldly means into the houses and took out hefty mortgages which they are still trying to pay off at increased interest rates. After the devastation of the flooding, which caused such great grief and loss to the residents, the owners will not be able to sell their houses at a reasonable price in the foreseeable future.
The case must provoke deep anxiety. I have referred to it before and I repeat my plea that it is imperative that an inquiry be initiated into how those houses came to be built in an area which was known to be prone to flooding. I repeat that plea to the Minister because an inquiry is the only way to get at the facts and to allay public suspicion about how the houses came to be built.
I understand that the builder has gone into liquidation. No doubt he made his profit and disappeared as fast as he


could. The poor householders are left to suffer. I do not believe that they should be left to suffer in silence. What they have had to endure is a disgrace.
I hope that the Government will agree to set up an inquiry. I believe that there should be a public inquiry, but, pending that, there should be at least a departmental inquiry, because the case exposes a vast number of defects in the planning procedures.
I urge that whenever a planning application is made in future a clear notice should be placed on the site so that the application is properly drawn to the attention of everyone who may be affected or who may wish to lodge an objection or a criticism with the local authority.
I have already taken a considerable time. There are many other matters that I should like to mention, but I conclude by repeating what I said earlier about the terrible level of unemployment in Northern Ireland. The people cry out for action from the Government. The unemployed, industrialists and everyone who has the future of Northern Ireland close to his heart cries out for the Government to take effective action. Pray God they do so soon.

Mr. John Dunlop: I want again to talk about two hospitals in my constituency. The hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) spoke at length about the threat to hospitals in his constituency. I shall mention two in my constituency, about which there is still some disquiet. One is the Tyrone county hospital in Omagh. Its geographical position is vital to the medical services that it provides in the area. There is a feeling that the acute medical services will be withdrawn and that the hospital will be run down to a mere casualty station. That view has been expressed to me, and I hope that I shall be given an assurance, perhaps this evening, that that will not happen.
As a town, Omagh has suffered grievously in recent days from bombing attacks on property and people. There have been many serious casualties, and many people would have died if they had had to be taken either to Enniskillen or Altnagelvin hospital in Londonderry, both of which are many miles away. Tyrone hospital has supplied services in Omagh over many generations. Incidentally, it was built by public subscription. Not a penny of Government money went into its construction. I hope, therefore, that I shall receive an assurance about this vital hospital.
The other hospital is the Mid-Ulster hospital in Magherafelt. Its position, too, is vital. It has been suggested that it will be progressively run down and that patients will have to be taken to a new hospital to be built at Antrim. The hospital in Magherafelt services a large part of South Deny and County Tyrone. About 70, 000 to 80, 000 people living around it need acute medical services. The hospital serve a wide area, stretching from Cookstown to the shore of Lough Neagh and up into the mountains of Draperstown. If the area lost its services, it would be nothing short of a calamity.
I have said before in the House, and I do not mind repeating it, that the first intensive care unit in Western Europe was provided by the Mid-Ulster hospital in Magherafelt. The unit has meant the difference between life and death for many people. It has played a vital role in saving lives, not only in local accidents, both on roads and in homes, but as a result of terrorist activities. There

are many people who, although seriously injured and handicapped, owe their lives to the fact that there was an intensive care unit at the Mid-Ulster hospital. I hope that I shall be given an assurance that the hospital will be maintained, together with its vital intensive care unit.
I recently experienced the skill, care and attention afforded to the general public in that hospital, when I suffered injuries in a road accident. Some of my parliamentary colleagues contended that I had had more to drink than I should have had and that, as a result, I saw more than one car and unfortunately I picked the wrong car to miss! I do not know whether that is true. I might add that the pubs do not make much money out of me. I repeat, however, that I hope that I shall be given an assurance that the Mid-Ulster hospital will be maintained with its acute medical services in the area of South Deny and East Tyrone.
I am sorry that the Minister from the Department of the Environment has just left the Chamber, because I was in touch with him about what I am about to say.
The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) said that, in general, the people of Northern Ireland want to own their own homes.
In the Omagh area a local developer, Mr. Duddy, is prepared to take over an estate to build houses for private ownership at a cost of £20, 000—£25, 000. They will be good, modern, well-fitted houses. Unfortunately, the Housing Executive has stepped in. It wants to take over the estate to build houses for renting. We all know that the executive's programmes usually fall behind schedule. Mr. Duddy is willing to build more houses on the same ground at a reasonable figure and complete them more rapidly. He undertakes to have some houses ready for occupation within one year. I know from experience of the executive that it could not even attempt to do that in the Omagh area.
I ask the Minister again to consider the building project to which I have referred. It is much needed in the Omagh area. There is great demand for housing, which the executive cannot meet, especially housing of the calibre that Mr. Duddy would build for sale and private ownership. The project would provide much-needed employment in the area. The hon. Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Soley) said that one in six of the unemployed in Northern Ireland are former building and construction workers. That sort of unemployment applies to a marked degree in the Omagh district, where there is much unemployment. The project would provide much-needed employment locally.

Mr. Harold McCusker: We are talking about the expenditure of hundreds of millions of pounds that will provide vital services in Northern Ireland, but the Minister's announcement that 850 jobs will be lost in Antrim with the proposed closure of British Enkalon is what sticks in my mind. At one stroke the proposed closure eliminates the euphoria that was felt in the Province over the weekend following the Secretary of State's announcement on Friday that an engineering concern was being attracted to the Province and that, if it were to come, it would provide employment for about 1, 000 over the next few years.
The proposed closure of British Enkalon is a body blow. Antrim, in common with other towns in the Province, attracted large industries in the 1960s. By and large, they were one-industry towns. Antrim has had a few


months to get over the initial shock of the closure announcement, but it and the surrounding towns and villages will be unable to absorb the 850 who will become unemployed. It is a severe body blow.
In Northern Ireland we are producing industrial archaeological sites at a rate which is almost unbelievable. The "cathedral" in Antrim will join two others at Carrickfergus and Kilroot. In some respects they stand as monuments to our folly. The dream of industrial revitalisation of the 1960s was based on the attraction of large capital intensive industries. In the textile sector that dream has not been realised. Is that type of capital intensive industry the way forward? Since 1965, hundreds of millions of pounds have been dissipated. We have little to show for that expenditure. It is all very well for the Minister to decry the comments in the Financial Times this morning as pure speculation. It does not sound like speculation to me. It said:
British Enkalon has turned down an offer for its Antrim plant made earlier this year. It was rejected because the potential buyer would have wanted to continue production of carpet yarns.
It states that the company
is known to want to eliminate not only some of its surplus fibre capacity in Europe but also some of the general surplus.
The article continues:
Therefore, it is sticking to its March 15 deadline for a decision on the future of the plant in spite of admitting that the Antrim works were among its most efficient units.
The group will concentrate future output in the Netherlands and West Germany.
I referred earlier to the tens of millions of pounds of public money given to such companies. I do not doubt that the ICI plant at Kilroot is empty today. I hope that the Minister can tell me that it is not, and that all the money invested in plant and equipment is still there. I hope that the same can be said about Courtaulds. The workers can never mount an effective blockade to stop the asset stripping in such circumstances. I hope that the Minister will ensure that the plant and equipment at Antrim will be scrutinised carefully and will not be taken away to modernise factories in the Netherlands or West Germany.
Twenty years is not enough to show an adequate return for the effort that has been put into such plants not merely in terms of public investment but in the efforts of the work force which has just been cast aside. They have all been exotic plants. They have budded, blossomed and decayed in a matter of a few years, producing little return. This should not be allowed to happen. While taking account of unemployment in the Province, I hope that the Minister will seek out a potential buyer. If that potential buyer can continue to produce goods that he can sell, make a return on and keep employment in Antrim, the Government should do their best to give him that opportunity.
I turn now to education. I say in all charity to spokesmen in the House for the Roman Catholic Church in Northern Ireland that it is not possible to have it both ways. I agree with what my right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) said about the right of the Catholic community to have its own teacher training facilities. However, how much does it cost St. Mary's and St. Joseph's to provide one teacher and how much does it cost Stranmillis and all the others? I should like to think that they are all comparable. If one insists that, either in their present form or in a united college form, the Roman Catholic colleges must provide 40 per cent. of potential Roman Catholic teacher training positions, one must also accept that all the other providers must examine carefully

their recruitment policies and ensure that only approximately 10 per cent. of all other opportunities—at Queen's, the new university, the polytechnic and all the other minor ones—go to Roman Catholics. Otherwise, the Roman Catholic sector will be over-provided for.
I agree with the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder). Ten years ago I thought that integrated education was the answer but there is no point in dreaming. The Roman Catholic Church can stop it, and it has decided to do so. It has decided to maintain an independent education system which, whether we like it or not, we must accept. If the Roman Catholic community in Northern Ireland wants its children educated in a Roman Catholic environment and ethos, I and many of my constituents are entitled to insist on our children being educated in a Protestant ethos. We are entitled to say that we want Protestant teachers and that we want the education system administered by Protestants.
I resent the fact that my children's education is administered by a chief administrative officer who will not have his own children educated in the system that he administers, and that resentment is increasing throughout the Protestant community. The 1, 100 unemployed teachers in Northern Ireland may well be in a 50:50 proportion, but Roman Catholic teachers are entitled to apply for any vacancy that they see advertised and will probably be seriously considered for it whereas Protestant teachers are not. By and large, vacancies in Roman Catholic schools are not even advertised, or they are advertised in journals that unemployed Protestant teachers are unlikely to see.
I am prepared to say that the Roman Catholics are entitled to have their own education system and that 97 per cent. of it should be paid for out of public funds, but they are not entitled to achieve that at the expense of my children and the children of the people that I represent. I hope that the Minister will bear that in mind in any decision that he makes.
The western education and library board will probably eventually have a majority of Roman Catholics. Indeed, I am told that there is already a majority. Roman Catholic members of the board will be administering schools and appointing teachers to what are, in effect, Protestant schools, although not one of them is prepared to have his own children educated there. There is also a problem in the southern area board which the Minister will eventually have to face.
If common services, such as school meals, janitorial services and so on are provided for both the voluntary and the controlled sectors, perhaps we may have a body to administer those services, but in the provision of education and deciding which schools will remain open and which will close, I do not want Seamus Mallon arguing the case for my children's education. If he wants a Roman Catholic education system in which to educate his children, he had better interest himself in that and let me interest myself in the system in which my children are educated. I say that in all charity. The Roman Catholic hierarchy cannot have it both ways. If we are to have parity, let us have parity and equal value for money.
We are often told that we must have parity in Northern Ireland. We are told that there must be homosexual law reform in Northern Ireland to give parity with the rest of the United Kingdom, but in other matters we cannot have parity. The children of Northern Ireland do not have parity of opportunity in higher education. There is movement of


children throughout Great Britain, and children about to enter higher education can apply generally to any college, university or polytechnic on the mainland. Northern Ireland children are restricted to the extent that they may receive a grant to attend a mainland university only if no equivalent course is available in the Province.
I was speaking to a university lecturer at the weekend. He was extremely concerned that, while students on the mainland will suffer once from the present squeeze, those in Northern Ireland will suffer a double squeeze. As a result of the squeeze on the mainland, we shall not have the existing limited opportunity to send some children to colleges and universities on the mainland, and because of the constraints in the Province there will be extra pressure there and thus a double squeeze. He did not give me all the details, but he was certainly convinced that this would operate to the disadvantage of children in Northern Ireland. I hope that the Minister can assure me that that lecturer was wrong and that I am therefore wrong.
On the Class V vote on housing, I add my voice to those who have spoken of the 22 per cent. rent increase. I listened carefully to the Minister at Northern Ireland Question Time last Thursday. He reassured me and I was glad of what he said. If all the assistance to which he referred is available, we shall try to ensure that as many people as possible realise what is available in rent rebates and so on. However, even when that is considered, the Northern Ireland people face a 22 per cent. increase which they cannot relate to the other 4 and 5 per cent. increases referred to when they seek wage rises.
The real tragedy and reason why they are unable to identify with that 22 per cent. is that it is imposed by someone from outside—a person above and beyond their reach. We will achieve the sort of identification necessary in public sector housing only when we obtain control again by elected representatives. I know about people's fears and reservations on the problems. However, when one considers the segregation that has occurred over the past few years in Northern Ireland housing, opportunities for abuse are not rife. There is, basically, a Protestant housing stock to which one allocates Protestants and a Catholic housing stock to which one allocates Catholics.
The main housing provision problem outside Belfast has been met. County Armagh needs no more houses. In many instances children have grown up and left home and their parents, aged between 55 and 65 years of age are left. We should arrange for them to move to other houses, certainly in County Armagh, where we have plenty of available accomodation. I do not know whether that applies to other areas, but I want to save as much money on the provision of housing as possible and to modernise and revitalise some of the older housing stock, which various housing associations are now doing. That property should then be made available at much lower rents than people are currently being charged by the Housing Executive.
The last housing estate to be built in Craigavon is called Parkmore. People are, however, virtually queueing at my door to get their names on a waiting list for one of the very few properties we are presently refurbishing in an old terrace of houses in the centre of Portadown. They are being charged so much for rent and heating that they would be happy to settle for a terraced house with a modern bathroom and kitchen. It is important that we do not

destroy any more of the terraces. We must maintain them. There is a demand in Northern Ireland for a lower class of accommodation at a cheaper rent. People are happy to settle for that option and they should have that choice.
We should do everything possible to obtain what people owe us—whether through rent, electricity or gas debts. However, the 22 per cent. increase in rent will only encourage more people to get into debt. We must somehow recover a sense of identity. When a person is asked to pay that figure, he should be able to go to his elected representative and ask how he is to pay and feel that his elected representative made the decision rather than an outsider.
The blanket application of the increase is also important. Why should people in Omagh, Portadown or County Down have to pay 22 per cent. when their circumstances may be completely different? Areas are probably paying the 22 per cent. to make up for inadequacies elsewhere.
Regret was expressed that the Government obtained less than they had originally estimated for rent, disposal of land and so on with regard to Class VI, Vote 2. The Minister knows where he can obtain much more money for land and its disposal. The Craigavon area has 5, 000 acres of land which is being improperly held. It was vested in 1966 for a specific purpose, which no longer exists and there is no way that it can be dressed up to show that it does. The opportunity to re-purchase that land should be given to its original owners. There are 5, 000 acres of virtually derelict land from which the Government could realise a substantial sum of money if they disposed of it. They could also dispense with the services of the civil servants who are currently employed as estate agents. I hope that some movement will be made by the Minister and that next time regret will not be expressed that the amount received is less than had been originally estimated.
I am sorry that my speech has been a little fragmented. I join the hon. Member for Down, North in saying that the loss of 850 more jobs in Northern Ireland is disastrous. I urge the Minister to take any opportunity, possibly through the potential purchaser available in Antrim, to save those jobs.

Mr. Gerard Fitt: I apologise to the Minister for the fact that I was not present for his opening remarks. I was meeting three deputations in Belfast protesting about the Government's running of the Province. I hope to be able to describe those meetings later in my remarks. I was, however, present to hear the Minister say that the Government were spending £3·5 billion in Northern Ireland—a point that was rightly pursued by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Soley). The Minister seemed to think that the people of Northern Ireland should go down on their knees to express their gratitude for the fact that this great sum was forthcoming.
The sum of £3·5 billion is a telephone number to most people in Belfast. Most do not understand the figure. What they know is that since the Government came to office in May 1979, 60, 000 more people have been thrown on to the dole. A considerable portion of the £3·5 billion is being paid in unemployment benefit and supplementary benefit to people who have become unemployed as a direct result of the activities of the Government.
The figure of 60, 000 more unemployed has not arisen entirely from factories going bankrupt, overnight closures and the activities of bad business managers. A significant proportion of those who have been made unemployed since the Government came to power are nurses, schoolteachers, home helps and ambulance drivers—people who are desperately needed to cope with the social deprivation that is so rampant and prevalent throughout Northern Ireland. It was a particular Budget in 1980 that led to the increase in the numbers of unemployed.
The Government cannot repeatedly point to the amount that is being put in to the Northern Ireland economy. Whatever the amount going in, the Government are paying out a considerable proportion in State benefits and social security payments as a direct result of the policies that they have carried out. I support every sentence uttered by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith, North about the terrible air of gloom, despair and despondency in Northern Ireland due to the totally unacceptable and intolerable level of unemployment.
The unemployment figure of 120, 000 represents 20 per cent. of the work force. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith, North and I know, having met trade unionists, 120, 000 is not a true figure. There are thousands more, particularly women, who feel that it is useless to take the trouble to register as unemployed because they do not qualify for State benefits. They also regard it as a waste of time because there is no work available. The figure can therefore be inflated.
The Minister will recall that predictions were made by economists in Northern Ireland at a meeting in Stormont just before Christmas. It was estimated that within the next five years the figure would increase to 130, 000 or 150, 000 and that anyway the number of unemployed was unlikely to fall below 70, 000. Those figures were given by economists who advise the Government on unemployment trends. They take into account the fact that about 10, 000 people per annum emigrate. What will happen when countries call a halt to immigration and when those countries that have their own unemployment problems refuse to take any more off Northern Ireland's unemployment register?
People from Northern Ireland no longer go to Birmingham, Coventry, London or Leeds. The idea of getting on a hike and looking for work is just not on, whatever Government spokesmen may say. I urge the Minister responsible for commerce to do what he can to build up Northern Ireland's indigenous industries and to fund the local enterprise development unit more generously. It is a small organisation, which received a good deal of support from the Labour Government. Given the finances at its disposal, it has acquitted itself well. I know some of those employed in LEDU. They are dedicated to doing all that they can to relieve distress, particularly in North and West Belfast, where there is great deprivation. I hope that the Minister will confirm that there will not be an appalling closure of British Enkalon in Antrim.
In the early 1950s and mid-1960s, Antrim, Carrick Fergus and Larne were regarded as the E1 Dorados of Northern Ireland, because incoming industrialists sited factories there. I well remember suspecting that those factories were being directed there to the exclusion of areas such as Derry, Strabane, Newry and West Belfast, where there is high unemployment. I now know that the

people of Carrick Fergus are beginning to experience the poverty that my constituents have suffered for at least a quarter of a century. Perhaps that experience has come later to Carrick Fergus than to other constituencies. Unfortunately, the threat hangs over Antrim that its people will suffer similar unemployment. Even at this late stage I hope that the Minister will use all his influence to ensure that that factory continues.
I associate myself with the demands that have been made to do something about De Lorean's subsidiaries and the small factories that are liable to go out of business if nothing is done. The Government have a responsibility, and I deny any Minister to say that the Labour Government were wrong to invite De Lorean to Northern Ireland. They invited De Lorean because of the distress and despair that had arisen from unemployment and because of the social deprivation and poverty. They knew that they were taking a risk. Since coming to office, the Government have realised that they could not depart from the decisions taken by the Labour Government. Therefore, they are under an obligation to do what they can for the numerous small traders. At the end of this week or next week another 400 to 700 people could be in the dole queues if the Government do not take decisive action.
One could speak for hours on unemployment in Northern Ireland. We do that every time there is an appropriation order. It is not necessary to continue in any , detail, but I say to the Minister that no one wants to threaten that there will be a breakdown of the social structure if the present rate of unemployment continues. However, the social structure has broken down. The longer the unemployment figures remain high, the more difficult it will be to build up a semblance of sanity in our society.
The largest deputation that I received today was from West and North Belfast, and was representative of the two communities. The eight members of that deputation appealed to me to get the Government to do something about lighting in North and West Belfast. There are no lights there. Many people have had accidents, particularly the elderly. We must take into account what has been said by the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder).
That area has been lying derelict for a long time. The pavements are broken. The Army vehicles do not drive in the middle of the road, but on the footpaths. Some of my hon. Friends have been to Northern Ireland and have seen them. There are no footpaths left in parts of the Falls Road or the estates. Perhaps that is for security reasons. People may say that there is a justification for no lights and that Army vehicles are allowed to drive outwith traffic regulations. However, accidents are being caused and the people who live there are concerned.
The second deputation that I received, which I regard as most important, was of many old people protesting as vehemently as they could against the reduction in hours of home helps. Many of those old people have had to depend on their home helps for a considerable time. A relationship has been built up between the aged person or invalid and the home help. It is not a highly paid profession. Many home helps are members of the National Union of Public Employees, which is one of the most poorly paid trade unions not only in Northern Ireland but in Great Britain. There has been a drastic cut in the number of home helps.
Only today I received a letter from the Minister telling me that he was sorry, but that he had made inquiries and found that nothing more could be done within the


Government's policy of cuts. This afternoon I was able to show that deputation a letter that I received from the Minister about someone who comes from North Belfast. There is a great deal of concern that old people will be left alone. They are not capable of looking after themselves. Because of the Government's cuts, their lives could be endangered.
Allied to that complaint is the ever-growing voice of dissent about the proposed 22 per cent. increase in rents. One may say that that is an overall increase being made in other parts of the United Kingdom and that house rents in Northern Ireland must be brought up to the standard of those in Leeds, Birmingham or anywhere else, but the conditions in Northern Ireland are different.
Belfast has never had full employment. In my lifetime there has never been the almost full employment enjoyed by people in Leeds, Birmingham and Coventry. Belfast has always had poverty and social deprivation. People there will not be able to pay the 22 per cent. increase in rent.
The Government may be saying under their breath—I hope that they are not—that if those people cannot pay their rents, they have the payment of debts legislation that does not apply to other parts of the United Kingdom. Thus they will be able to take the rent and the money for the increase out of people's social security benefit. If the Government continue to use the payment of debts legislation, they will increase the sum of poverty and distress in Northern Ireland. It does not apply to any other part of the United Kingdom.
The Beechmount estate is tenanted by many old people. The wardens have been withdrawn and the old people are not capable of looking after themselves. I also learnt from a deputation this morning that wardens looking after old people in North and West Belfast received notice from the eastern health and social services board on Saturday morning that from 1 March they would have to pay charges for rent, rates and lighting. They do not know whether the decision was taken by the Housing Executive or by the eastern health and social services board. Formerly their accommodation was given to them because of their job of looking after the old people. I shall give the Minister details.
There will always be a great deal of agreement on the issue of the Housing Executive. The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) spoke with knowledge of the situation in Belfast. We are split into Belfast and the rest in Northern Ireland when it comes to housing. North Belfast has its problems, but they are nothing compared with those of West Belfast, the area which I represent. It has the worst problems.
Great distress is caused by the Housing Executive's inability to maintain and repair its houses. I do not know what is wrong with it. I supported its inception in 1970. It was a political decision, but I have since regretted the inefficiency with which it conducts its business. I do not suggest that there is deliberate malice or that people do not wish to carry out the repairs, but if one rings the executive the call is referred to someone else and someone else again. It goes round in circles. When one speaks to the same person a fortnight later he is surprised to learn that nothing happened. I could name people to whom I have spoken today, last week and the week before. They are in senior positions.
I have been ringing the executive about one maintenance and repair case since July. My last call was this morning. I ring every fortnight or so. Each time that I ring I am promised that the matter will be attended to, but nothing happens. There are too many people in too many offices on the end of too many telephones who do not know what the others are doing. People are paying exorbitant rents, which are further to increase, for accommodation in bad repair.
When the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North was speaking, the Minister interjected to say that the rent increases do not pay for capital costs. If they do not pay for capital costs, they pay for something that is nearly that, because maintenance is protecting the original capital investment and a proportion of the rents is being put aside for maintenance. People resent paying an increase in rent for maintenance when their house is in a state of disrepair. The Minister should not think that it is all flights of imagination about maintenance and repairs, because every representative from Northern Ireland is faced with this problem.
I remember when I was a member of Belfast corporation 25 years ago. It began to talk about building tower blocks, which it referred to as units of accommodation. Everybody was going to be fitted into little boxes. I remember telling one of the architects propagating the new concept that it would be a failure and that it would never take off or work. Every other public representative from other parts of the United Kingdom might have been saying the same thing. We are now proved right—tower blocks just do not work.
I can make another prediction. Another thing that will not work is the district heating system. An estate is built with a boiler house and all the houses get all their heating from one central point. As soon as there is a night of bad weather, one of the pipes bursts and nobody on the estate gets any heat. That happens repeatedly—almost every time there is a sharp frost, of which there were many in January of this year. The boilers do not work, the pipes burst, and people are frozen.
It would be different if the heating were at a reasonable cost, but it is not. It is one of the most exorbitant costs for those living in Housing Executive homes. They have to pay that, otherwise they do not get heating. I said in a Committee when we discussed Housing Executive rent increases that I was suspicious that the powers that be in Northern Ireland were increasing rents to such an extent that people living in those houses, poverty stricken as they may be, will say to themselves "We are paying this rent increase. Would it not be better to buy our homes, because at least we should know that the rents will not go up every time the Minister wakes up with a hangover?"
One of the deputations that I met over the weekend said to me that four women who live in the lower part of the Falls area would like to buy the houses that they occupy. They went to the Housing Executive and said that they had heard that the Government wanted to push the selling of houses. I do not agree with the idea, but the Government cannot have it both ways. The Housing Executive agreed to the sale but said that if they did buy their houses they would still have to remain connected to the district heating system. The four women said "No, that is one of the reasons we want to buy the houses. We want to get away from the heating system. We want to have coal or gas."


The Housing Executive refused and said that even if they bought the houses, they had to remain with the district heating system.
The Government cannot have it both ways. If people want to buy their houses, they should be allowed to disconnect from the heating system. It might be said that those sales would mean four fewer people on the estate and that that would increase the heating account for the others. I advise the Minister not to use the district heating system in any future building for Northern Ireland, because it will not work and it is causing all sorts of problems for the people who are forced to use it.
I have deliberately left the Chilver report to the last. Quite a lot of this debate has concentrated on the recommendations of that report.
I should like to think that we could have a society in Northern Ireland in which Protestant and Catholic children went to the same schools and grew up in amity and accord. That would be an ideal solution in an ideal world, but an ideal world is not for Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland was partitioned by a British Government in 1920 on a Catholic and Protestant head count. One has only to look through the debates of those days to appreciate that. It was a deliberate head count of Catholics and Protestants which created the State of Northern Ireland. That head count was made in 1920. It is still being made in 1982. It will not go away. There is a Protestant community in Northern Ireland that wishes to maintain its own culture and ethos. There is a Catholic community that wishes to do the same. We cannot force those two communities together against their will.
I was discussing the problem over the weekend with some of my Socialist friends—people of my own religion and others not of my religion. They think, naively and innocently, that if education in Northern Ireland were integrated totally it would help a great deal to do away with the present cause of dissent. That is not true. People in Northern Ireland are not fighting about religion. They are fighting about a national identity—about whether they are British or Irish.
The convenience of a political label can be put on to them readily. It can be said that the vast majority of Catholics would like some day to see a united Ireland brought about, in total conformity with Labour Party policy—by consent and certainly not by coercion. The Protestant community in Northern Ireland wish to maintain their relationship with this island. That is what the violence, the division, and the destruction is about. It is not because people disagree with one another or because they go to different places of worship on Sunday.
The hon. Member for Down, North epitomises an attitude which causes fear and distrust in Northern Ireland. When the Chilver recommendations were first leaked to the press and it was said that the two Catholic colleges, St. Joseph's and St. Mary's, were to be abolished and moved lock, stock and barrel to Stranmillis, it was reported in such a way that it seemed that Protestant extremists were highly delighted because they felt that it was a victory over the Catholics, which meant in turn that the Catholics felt that they had been defeated thanks to the sinister machinations of those advising the Government.
The hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker) talked about the spokesmen of the Catholic Church in the House. I was born and raised a Catholic, but I am not a spokesman for the Catholic Church. There have been occasions in the

not too recent past when I have disagreed strongly, at some cost politically, with certain pronouncements made by eminent spokesmen of the Catholic Church.
I am not here to say anything which the Roman Catholic is Church tells me to say, but I say as a Catholic born in Northern Ireland that I agree with the right of Catholic parents to have their children educated in schools under the aegis of the Roman Catholic Church if that is what they want. Any attempt to make any incursion into the rights of parents would be disastrous for community relations in Northern Ireland.
A few days ago Dr. John Armstrong, the Church of Ireland Primate, said that the rights of Protestants who want to retain the teacher training college at Stranmillis should be respected. I totally agree. We cannot force integration—either in the teaching of children or teacher training—against the will of the people affected.
The hon. Member for Down, North said that in the early 1970s an attempt was made to achieve integration at primary school level or even kindergarten level and that it was stopped by the Catholic Church. I do not recall that. He said that that proposed experiment was brought to an end by the opposition of the Catholic Church. I was deputy chief executive in the short-lived Sunningdale Executive Government of Northern Ireland from January to May 1974. That executive, composed of people of different religious and political backgrounds, engaged in this totally new experiment. We reached agreement and decided that experiments should be introduced by consent to allow Protestant and Catholic children to attend a pilot scheme.
That experiment was ended, not by the opposition of the Catholic Church but by the Ulster workers' strike, led by the Loyalist forces, against the continued existence of that executive. The SDLP, of which I was then leader, was prepared to co-operate in a pilot scheme to see whether it would be possible.
It is probably true that economies must be made. I can say that more forcefully than most, because I lived in Northern Ireland at the time. In the 1950s and 1960s the Northern Ireland Government, who had control of education, allowed their ambitions to run away with them. They established too many teacher training bodies. There were the three colleges, Queen's, the new university of Ulster and the polytechnics. So many separate institutions were engaged in teacher training that, given a fall in the birth rate or a change in the number of children attending schools, many of those teachers would find themselves unemployed. At that time many people in the old Stormont Parliament predicted that that would happen, and it is certainly happening today.
When one talks of education in Northern Ireland, one has to realise that not far beneath the surface there arc always sectarian considerations. The people living there today cannot be blamed, because the sectarian State of Northern Ireland was created in 1920 by a Government of this House on a Catholic and Protestant religious head count.
I well remember the controversy about the siting of the new university in Coleraine. Londonderry and Armagh put in their claims. Indeed, many Catholics and some Protestants believed that the siting of the university in Coleraine was a political decision. Many people thought that it should have been located in Derry. At the time there was terrible poverty and unemployment in Derry.
If one goes back to the beginning of the social unrest and discontent that has existed between Catholics and


Protestants for the past 20 years, one can look back to 1964 to the debate that took place in Stormont. Derry felt sorely aggrieved and discriminated against because the university was politically directed to Coleraine, where it would be more advantageous to the Unionists. They are considerations that have to be borne in mind at all times by the Minister in charge of education in Northern Ireland.
I am not speaking as a spokesman for the Catholic Church. I am speaking here as a Catholic who lives in Northern Ireland and who knows the feelings that run through the Catholic community. Sometimes the Catholic community may not agree with everything that I say. For example, they may not agree with what I said last year about political developments. However, I felt totally justified in saying that then, and I feel totally justified in saying what I am saying now.
The Catholic community recognises that economies have to be made. After the amalgamation—if there is an amalgamation—of the two Roman Catholic colleges, there will still be the question of how many teachers will be trained. That could be another tremendous obstacle. It is not just a matter of the sites and the colleges. The sites and the colleges mean nothing if there is not a continuous flow of young people going to those colleges to be trained.
The figures for Catholic training establishments in England, Wales and Scotland prove the point of view now being put forward by the Catholic education authorities in Northern Ireland. The number of pupils at teacher training colleges that they are asking the Government to allow can be justified.
Perhaps the hon. Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. Dunn) spoke as a Catholic, but he also spoke as a former junior Minister in Northern Ireland. We are fortunate to have spokesmen from both Front Benches who have experience of Northern Ireland. They know that education in Northern Ireland is a flashpoint. The Catholic Church, the Catholic community and the Catholic educationists are right to demand that they should be allowed to continue their teacher training under their own culture and their own ethos. I believe that that is right, and no one has told me to say that. Any attempt to break down that structure would be wrong. Any attempt to break down the structure that prevails at Stranmillis would be bitterly resented by the Protestant community, because they are entitled to maintain their religion in their teaching establishments.
I urge the Minister to think very closely before he makes a decision. Since I came into the House today, I have thought that it might be better for a decision to be taken. If it is not, there will be rumour and counter-rumour, and allegation heaped upon allegation. I do not have to tell the Minister what that could mean in Northern Ireland.
The Catholic Church is right in its demands. The whole history of the Northern Ireland community—the setting up of the State, which is a responsibility of the British Government—has led to this. In those circumstances, the Minister should accede to the demands being made by the Catholic education authorities in Northern Ireland.

The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. David Mitchell): It may be helpful if I respond to some of the points raised concerning the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland.
In opening the debate, the Opposition Front Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Hammersmith North (Mr. Soley) spoke of rents which he felt should not be subsidising the new building programme of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Since there has been from several quarters a misunderstanding on this score, I will mention some of the facts.
We anticipate that the net increase in income to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive arising from the increase in rents will be about £12 million. One cannot be exact or precise, but that is our general expectation. The Northern Ireland Housing Executive plans to spend £26, 400, 000 more on action on existing dwellings and estates under its capital programme than it is now spending, that is to say, an increase from £34 million to £60, 400, 000. That is not on the newbuild programme of 4, 250 that we have announced for the coming year. In addition to that, the Housing Executive expects to increase its expenditure on housing and grounds maintenance from £34, 322, 000 to £42, 566, 000—an increase of £8, 244, 000. All that is against an increase of only £12 million in rental income.
Therefore, I am sure that the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North who would wish to be fair, would recognise that it is not true to say that the increase in rents will pay for the newbuild programme. It is not doing so.

Mr. Soley: I am grateful to the Minister for providing more details. Is the £12 million from the earlier rent increases, including the one proposed for April this year? Earlier, I gave figures of 26 per cent. , 11 per cent., and the proposed 22 per cent. I should have said 26 per cent., 38 per cent., and 22 per cent. Is the Minister saying that that will yield the £12 million, or is the 22 per cent. yielding it?
Can the Minister really ask us to accept, in view of the past cuts in the housing programme, that no effort is being made to raise the rents to pay for the capital programme? Is he giving that guarantee to the House? If so, although it would be very good news, we should want to look at the figures very closely over a period of time.

Mr. Mitchell: I have given the hon. Gentleman the figures and, as he rightly said, he would want to look at them in greater depth. If he wants any further information, I shall be happy to write to him about it. He will see from my figures that the increase in rents this year, which gives rise to the £12 million, is more than swamped by the additional expenditure on the existing housing stock.
The second major point that was made by the hon. Gentleman—and by the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt), in his usual eloquent and pungent style—referred to the burden on poor tenants of a 22 per cent. increase in rent. About 60, 000 of the tenants of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive are already on supplementary benefit and will not have to pay anything in the way of an increase. Those are the poorest of the constituents of the hon. Member for Belfast, West. In addition, about 35, 000 tenants are on rent rebate.
I should like to ask for the assistance of hon. Members who represent Northern Ireland constituencies, because we believe that there are about another 10, 000 tenants who are eligible for rent rebates and have not applied for them. Therefore, when the hon. Member refers to hardship, I beg him to make more widely known the extent to which there is a very generous system of rent rebates and rate rebates


available to his constituents. Indeed, it is so generous that a man and a wife with two children, paying a rent of £15 a week, are eligible, up to an income of £6, 000 a year, for a rent rebate. The sheer generosity of the rebate scheme is not fully appreciated.
The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) praised the Housing Executive for its success in improving rural housing. I shall be delighted to pass on those comments to the chairman of the executive because plenty of kicks get passed, and when there are congratulations to go as well, it is right that he should be told about them.
The right hon. Member referred to Belfast and, in particular, to the problem of bricked—up streets. Having driven round Belfast, I am equally concerned about that problem. There are about 4, 000 bricked-up houses in Belfast. That is a substantial reduction on the 6, 000 of a short time ago. That reduction has taken place because most of the bricked-up houses are in the redevelopment areas and as they are redeveloped, the problem disappears. There are many such houses in Donegall Pass, Sandy Row and the Markets and there are some in Lower Ormeau which is a housing action area.
Tomorrow evening my officials are meeting the city planning committee to discuss proposals for RDA 17 and 20—Sandy Row and Great Victoria Street—and that should lead to further progress in dealing with the redevelopment programme for that area.
The right hon. Member for Down, South called for a renewal of the housing stock in Belfast. Much of the stock in Belfast was put up in the Victorian era when the mills were sucking in labour from all over Ireland. The worst housing is in Belfast, and that is why so large a proportion of the effort of the Housing Executive is being made in the city. This year, we anticipate that 2, 000 new houses will be started in Belfast, that next year approximately the same number will be started in the city, and that 1, 000 of the major rehabilitations will also take place. By the end of the year, the right hon. Gentleman will be able to drive in and out of Belfast and notice the change that we are beginning to bring about.
The right hon. Gentleman was right to put his finger on maintenance as an area which causes concern. The chairman of the Housing Executive has assured me that much has been done to speed up maintenance. There is, of course, the changeover from response maintenance to planned maintenance. Instead of workmen going out to do individual items, which takes an enormous amount of journeying time, the executive rectifies dangerous or structural faults within four days. Necessary repairs are done within six weeks, and the rest is left to be swept up with the planned maintenance. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will let me know of any examples where that sort of timing is not being adhered to, because I shall want to bring them to the attention of the chairman.
The Housing Executive has just announced—I have been anxious to encourage it to do so—an increase from £50 to £125 in the self-repair scheme which means that the extremely large number of repairs to which the right hon. Member for Down, South has referred and with which the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker) is familiar, can now be done by the tenant himself. He can go along to the Housing Executive, ask for its approval to do the job, and then place the work with a jobbing builder in the area. He can inspect the work himself and ensure that it is done properly. That is much more efficient than waiting for a vast machine such as the Housing Executive to do the

detailed work. I shall bring the point about contractors doing poor work to the attention of the chairman of the Housing Executive.
The hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) spoke about the Manse Road flooding, and asked for a public inquiry. Outline planning permission was given by the former Newtownards borough council. The Department of the Environment gave only the subsequent reserve matters approval. It was not open to us to refuse that, because the outline planning permission had already been given. However, we gave a warning at the time that there was a possibility of flooding in the area. I should add, perhaps sotto voce, that the borough council, which gave the consent in 1973, was the urban drainage authority. I am in a position to give these facts to the House, so I do not believe that a public inquiry will take us much further.
The hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Mr. Dunlop) raised the question of land for private development in Omagh. I shall look into the matter and write to him.
The hon. Member for Armagh spoke about rent increases, which he said were too high. He raised two issues. First, he said that the increases were imposed by an outsider. I think that he was referring to me, although I do not feel an outsider in the part of the United Kingdom with which I am involved as a Minister. I think that he is wrong to regard me as an outsider, and he is wrong when he says that I imposed the increase. I invited the Housing Executive to make an appropriate offer. It made the offer and imposed the increase, not I. Secondly, the hon Gentleman talked about the 22 per cent. increase as though it were a vast amount of money. It averages out at £1·88. That is less than the £2·20 in Scotland, and less than the £2·50 in England and Wales. One should bear in mind that those who pay the higher rents in England will have to subsidise any lower rents in Northern Ireland.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. Dunn) spoke about the enterprise zone. He suggested that we should take more land. We have taken 512 acres, and it will take us a long time to get that amount of land under way. The matter is being promoted vigorously at the moment. We held a reception at which we brought together all the business men who are involved in the zone. A number of them were surprised to find that they were buying materials from outside that they could buy just down the road. We have received 250 sensible inquiries at the enterprise zone office for potential businesses in the area. The first new business has been opened and is already operating in the enterprise zone. We have a long way to go, but we have made a good start.
The other matter that was raised by the hon. Member for Kirkdale relating to the Department of the Environment was the Liverpool to Belfast ferry. The hon. Gentleman called for public money to be used. At the time when the P and 0 service was brought to an end, we were asked for £¾ million to £1 million of public money a year to keep it going. We said "No". We said that it was a potentially viable proposition as it stood, without public money. I hope that we shall be able to say before the end of the month that a new service is to come into operation. I can only ask the hon. Gentleman to watch this space for further announcements.
The hon. Member for Armagh referred to Craigavon land. We shall be having a major drive to dispose of surplus land through the Department of the Environment


during the coming year. I shall write to the hon. Gentleman on the specific matter that he raised about Craigavon.
The hon. Member for Belfast, West talked about the deputation that he had met that was concerned about street lighting. I shall be happy to receive the deputation if he cares to bring it to me. He said that rents have been increased to the levels of those in Leeds and Birmingham. That is not so. On average, they are £2 a week less than in Leeds and Birmingham. The hon. Gentleman referred to a repair item that has been outstanding since July. If he sends me the full details, I shall be happy to look into the issue.
The hon. Member for Belfast, West spoke about tower blocks. The lesson has been learnt. Great mistakes were made in many areas, and perhaps Belfast is fortunate that its redevelopment is taking place later than in other areas. Serious mistakes, such as the construction of tower blocks, are not being repeated.
A serious problem is developing in some parts of Belfast through the district heating system. We intend to cut one small area out of the system. We shall install solid fuel heating in the area that is worst affected. We are reviewing the other areas. I hope that the hon. Member for Belfast, West will feel that I have taken on board the comments that he made.
I have dealt with the problems that concern the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland. If there are any further issues that hon. Members want to take up with me, I shall be happy to correspond with them.

Mr. William Ross: One of the problems when we discuss Northern Ireland appropriation orders is that normally time is restricted. On this occasion we have had a fair amount of time and a good deal of time still remains.
In the rather long debate that has already taken place it is rather surprising that agricultural problems have not been mentioned. There are a number of problems that need to be brought to the Minister's attention. I shall start by taking up some of the minor problems.
The Minister is aware that recently I tabled a number of questions on the definition of river mouths in Northern Ireland. He and his officials caught on quickly to precisely what I was getting at. I shall take the opportunity to expand upon my questions. It is an issue that has serious implications for the production of the salmon fisheries in Northern Ireland.
River mouths were defined for the first time, I believe, in the last century. Since then there has been a build-up of sand banks, and in the Foyle area there has been reclamation from the sea. As the areas that are salmon sanctuaries off river mouths are defined by reference to the original definition, and as during the 100 years that have passed since the first definition, the river outlets to lakes, loughs and seas have changed somewhat, a redefinition of the sanctuaries has become necessary, but that has not yet taken place. I am anxious that it should take place before the coming netting season. I hope that the Minister will be able to give me an assurance that any necessary work will be put in train in response to requests in the Lough Foyle area and throughout Northern Ireland.
The second minor matter that I wish to raise concerns the sum which has been made available to the United Kingdom from the EEC to cover the loss of farm livestock and the other losses occasioned by the dumping of farm produce that arose because of the severe weather. The sum for the whole of the United Kingdom is only £750, 000. I am curious to know whether any of this money will come to Northern Ireland, or whether it will all be spent in Great Britain. If the Minister cannot tell me today, I hope that he will let me know in the next few days.
There are also major problems in agriculture. First, legislation on dogs has been hanging around for years and it seems, on present showing, to be destined to hang about for several years yet. When will any of it come through? Secondly, the problem of the less favoured areas has also been under review for years and seems to be getting nowhere. Why is there no movement and when can we expect action?
Thirdly, there is the extremely difficult problem of support for sheepmeat. The system of support in Northern Ireland is to be changed from the United Kingdom system to the system used in the Irish Republic. What effect will that have on public expenditure in the United Kingdom in the current year? Why is the change being made? Is it being made solely at the behest of the Commission because of the smuggling on the border? If so, does not that show a signal failure by the Government to control the border and protect public money on the border? There must be a tremendous loss of revenue to the public purse. Surely the proper way to deal with the problem is to deal with the criminals rather than to get round it by the method proposed.
I turn to housing. I listened with interest to the Minister's remarks. He said that £60 million was being spent on maintaining and improving estates this year, but the figures were questioned by the Labour Front Bench. How much of the money being spent on the estates will be raised from the sale of dwellings? Is the money to be used for maintenance and improvement work or is it being tailored into the system in some other way?
I echo what my right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) said about housing repairs, although in a rather different context. I have been concerned for some time about the standard of workmanship in minor repairs. A letter that I received recently from the Housing Executive states:
The maintenance officer for the area in question called on this tenant on 1 February this year. He states that he is satisfied with the standard of workmanship in the kitchen and will not be issuing any further instructions to the contractor regarding the work.
That is a tiny matter and it may seem strange to raise it on the Floor of the House. If it were the only complaint, one might reasonably consider that it was a minor detail, but time and again constituents who come to my surgeries complain about the standard of workmanship in normal workaday housing repairs. I accept that I see only the tip of the iceberg. None of us can see any more than that, but when we receive a large number of complaints about one aspect of work we know that there are hundreds or thousands that we do not see or hear about. I have witnessed some of the workmanship. The excuse may be that we cannot expect the top standard of work. However, we are paying for proper workmanship for repairs and for the standards in houses erected. We do not seem to obtain sufficient quality. The workmanship I have seen would not


be allowed in my home. There is no reason why the Housing Executive should accept sloppy workmanship from anyone; it is paying proper jobs and should obtain a proper standard of workmanship from a contractor or from its own maintenance officers.
The rent account problem concerns every Member who represents a Northern Ireland constituency and relates to Housing Executive tenants. We all accept that there are those who will deliberately not pay their rents and that debt legislation must be implemented to put the matter on a square footing.
I find it exceedingly difficult to accept the present situation. People tell me that they have lived in houses for 30 years, have paid their rents regularly and are then told by the Housing Executive that they owe between £5 and £30 in rent arrears. They cannot understand that. Therefore, they visit the Housing Executive and sometimes manage to discover, after great difficulty, where the arrears came from. Some arrears are small and have accrued over some years and, inadvertently, a week's payments are sometimes missed. However, far too often, the fault lies not with the tenant but with the Housing Executive.
In these days of computers and endless lines of officials controlling these matters, it is hard to believe that rent accounts cannot be kept accurately and that people cannot be told exactly where they stand on rents at any given time. If something is wrong, a reasonable and clear explanation should be given to a tenant, especially to an aged tenant. Such tenants are very disturbed by these matters and often visit me in a great fluster—horrified that they have been accused of owing a sum of money when they have paid their rents continually. They are unable to understand how the problem has arisen and find it difficult to obtain a proper, reasonable and simple explanation from the executive. It is perhaps not a simple question to answer, but certainly some effort must be made to resolve it.
Another aspect concerns the grants payable for the improvement of dwellings by the Housing Executive. I first became aware of the problem because of a house in Enagh Crescent in Londonderry where a constituent purchased his dwelling last year. He was told that the executive's policy was, from 5 January 1981, that improvement grants would no longer be available for post-war dwellings, with the exception of applications for the disabled or for houses with no amenities. A repair grant might be made available in certain circumstances.
From correspondence, it appears that the Housing Executive's post-war properties and those which are dry houses, built with the aid of a dry subsidy, are debarred from certain grants. Yet the Housing Executive itself would be prepared to spend public money to bring these houses up to standard. I do not believe that many houses fall into this narrow category. An effort should be made to make available improvement grants to the owners of such dwellings, similar to those available to other householders, to bring the properties up to proper standard. I should be grateful to the Minister if he would examine the matter.
This problem also exists in relation to houses such as that at Maydown where the individual wished to increase the size of the kitchen. The Housing Executive will be spending a large amount of money on dwellings that it owns of this type. The Minister will be aware that many houses throughout Northern Ireland have extremely small

kitchens. Those who buy them will find that they are not eligible for an improvement grant for that purpose. I wonder if anything can be done to help them.
The Minister has mentioned the do-it-yourself scheme. It is curious that the scheme has not taken off. I wonder what investigation has been made by the Housing Executive into the failure of the scheme. It seems a straightforward procedure that would have benefited tenants of Housing Executive dwellings. The only answer by the Housing Executive has been to raise the sum of money that is available. There must be something else wrong. It cannot simply be a lack of cash. The Minister should ask the executive to go back to the grass roots to find out why the scheme has not taken off in the way that had been hoped.

Mr. David Mitchell: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I do not want to prolong the debate. I should like, however, to deal with the points that the hon. Gentleman raises and that concern housing. The newbuild programme for Northern Ireland will cost £95 million in the coming year. The whole of the receipts from the sale of executive houses are expected to be spent by the Housing Executive on its own programme. So far as the inadequate inspection of repair work is concerned, I have already agreed—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill): Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not making another speech.

Mr. Mitchell: I was seeking, Mr. Deputy Speaker, not to make another speech but to deal with the points raised directly with me by the hon. Gentleman. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will write to me about rent arrears and mistakes by the executive. He also raised the matter of the narrow category of dry houses for which improvement grants are required. Again, if he will write to me, I shall be happy to deal with the matter. I should like to make a small point about the do-it-yourself repair scheme The hon. Gentleman referred to it as a failure. It is not a failure. It took a long time to take off, but it is now proving to be a success. That is why the Housing Executive has extended the sums available under it. I hope that more people will make use of it.

Mr. Ross: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's intervention. The hon. Gentleman says that I am not satisfied about the inspection of repairs. That is not the point. My complaint is about the acceptance of the standard of workmanship by the Housing Executive. It accepts a low standard instead of insisting that the contractor comes back and does the job properly.
I turn now to education. I wish to register a complaint about a continuing problem in many parts of Northern Ireland over the use of large numbers of sectional buildings in schools. Sectional buildings are clearly intended to be temporary. During the recent cold weather, however, they proved very difficult to heat. This was resented by many parents. I accept that schools in Northern Ireland have too much accommodation and that in some parts of my constituency, children, particularly in the voluntary section, are being bussed from one part of Londonderry to another while new schools are not being built. However, I cannot accept that sectional buildings should be allowed to continue for ever. Before next year's cold weather arrives, I hope that many of the buildings will be replaced.
Part of the draft order refers to harbour facilities. I turn to that aspect of life in Northern Ireland, because the provision of pilots is vital. Hon. Members will remember that I raised several matters last week about the sinking of the "St. Bedan" and the bombing and sinking in the previous year of the "Nellie M" in Lough Foyle.
Londonderry's harbour authority spends a considerable sum of British public money every year to maintain a pier at Moville in county Donegal. It is responsible for the provision of pilotage to and from Londonderry harbour. Public money is involved. Last week, I raised the possibility of basing the pilots in county Londonderry, on the Magilligan shore of the Lough. During the weekend another possibility was drawn to my attention, which I understand from this morning's radio, has already been considered by others. I refer to the suggestion that pilotage for the Bann and the Foyle could be amalgamated and based where the present navigation for the Bann is based, in Portstewart harbour or in that of Portrush.
Several factors about the sinking of the "St. Bedan" should be considered, because an enormous amount of public money will be involved in compensation alone. The terrorists must have known the estimated time of arrival for the boat to pick up the pilots. I gather that the raiders knew when to arrive and to take over the pilot station and the pilot boat and to go out to the vessel. That shows that somewhere along the line there was a serious leak of information to that terrorist gang. Given that, and the fact that the pilot station is in county Donegal and cannot be protected by the United Kingdom's security forces, it is imperative for the safety not only of pilots but of British and other vessels using the waters, that the pilot station and the pilots should be based in Northern Ireland. They could then be given proper protection.
I hope that the suggestion of basing pilots completely in Northern Ireland—where they can be properly protected and where there is proper security—will be put into operation with the minimum of delay. The longer the situation exists, the more opportunities will be open to

terrorists to strike again. The present system of pilotage for Londonderry port was set up a long time ago in county Donegal and rowing boats were used to reach the incoming vessels. Human muscle power is no longer required, and for many years motor boats have been used. There is no difficulty in reaching vessels bound for the Bann and the Foyle from Portstewart or Portrush. The pilots should be based at one of those points.
The last subject that I wish to speak about relates to the problem raised by other hon. Members, which is the mess surrounding the De Lorean car firm. The Minister will recall that I led a deputation to see him on 12 February. My hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) and I also saw him in London the week after that. We drew his attention to our understanding of the situation, which has been covered to some extent this evening. There are about 158 creditors of the firm in Northern Ireland. Up to one third of them are about to go broke if they do not get their money. It is doubtful whether the firm could find further suppliers quickly enough to keep it as a going concern if these creditors disappear.
Those creditors have expressed concern to me and to my hon. Friend about why De Lorean seems to be getting better treatment than them. They raised concern especially because the Government are involved through the Government agency NIDA, which has directors on the De Lorean board. People have asked why the company was allowed to go on trading when debts were mounting up to such an extent that the bills were not being paid. The creditors see that the Government are seeking their pound of flesh for the taxes that they are due to pay. I suggest to the Government that they are seeking not only a pound of flesh but the blood.
I hope that when the Government put up risk capital, they will accept their responsibility. I hope that they will also remember that the other major engineering firm still operating in Belfast—Harland and Wolff—has a guarantee to its creditors. It is not asking too much in the light of present unemployment in Northern Ireland and in the light of the difficulties caused by De Lorean that the same criteria be applied to the creditors of that company.

The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Nicholas Scott): I apologise for not being present at the beginning of the debate. I am conscious that there might be a danger of over-egging the Front Bench pudding, but it might he useful if I intervened to say a word not about all the education matters covered tonight, on the details of which I shall write to hon. Members, but about teacher training, which has been raised by a number of hon. Members.
The common thread that has run through the speeches is an acknowledgement that something must be done about that problem. In Northern Ireland we have room for about twice as many teachers as we need to train each year. We have six institutions. I shall not go into the history of why they were set up, but we are now confronted with a problem that needs to be resolved.
The hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker) talked of comparative costs of training teachers in different institutions. It is difficult to make a comparison between teacher training colleges and universities and polytechnics, because teacher training colleges only train teachers, while the other institutions do all sorts of other jobs.
The cost of training teachers in the three training colleges is broadly the same. Perhaps the best measure that I can give the hon. Gentleman is that the staff-student ratio in St. Mary's, St. Joseph's and Stranmillis is about 5·7 or 5·8:1. The urgency of doing something about the problem must be brought home. In Great Britain the ratio is about 10:1, which is nearly twice that in Northern Ireland. Something must be done about the problem.
The burden of the argument put by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. Dunn) was that the proposals of the Chilver interim report about movement to the Stranmillis site simply will not do. That may turn out to be the case, but one can well understand why Sir Henry Chilver and his review group made the suggestion. The plant at all three teacher training colleges is greatly under-used. They could see the advantage in maximising the use of the plant at the Stranmillis site. It is an attractive campus area.
We must accept the central proposition that it is not for the Government to make the final decision. We must proceed by consent. I have been urged to proceed by consent. I have been told of the widespread misapprehensions about the Government's intentions. I do not have the power to close the training colleges. They are under the control of trustees at St. Mary's and St. Joseph's, who have the final power to make decisions about the colleges' future and the teacher training carried out at them. I have a responsibility to the education system as a whole in Northern Ireland and to the taxpayer to see that we get not only the most cost-effective system but the highest standards of teacher training.
It is not purely an argument about money—about shifting the colleges onto one site purely for economy. It is important that they should provide teacher training of the highest possible standard. If the staffing ratios of all three colleges are to be brought into line with those in Great Britain, it will be difficult for each to continue to provide the present range of courses for the young people who attend them. The decision about bringing their staffing into line has been postponed for a long time

because we were awaiting the review group's proposals. Now that they have been accepted, something must be done.
I wish to proceed in so far as it is humanly possible by agreement among the providers of teacher training. I am in discussion, both in correspondence and by meetings, with all the providers of teacher training in Northern Ireland. I shall do my best to see that the end result is brought about by consensus among them. In politics one should not get too upset about having motives that are not there attributed to one, but I sometimes wonder why, with a proposal like this from a review group that included Catholics and Protestants, there should be accusations of a deep-laid plot to attack Catholic education.
The first proposal that the group considered was that all the teacher training in Belfast should go the department of education of Queen's University. That was turned down, precisely because the review group foresaw—I shall not take the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) with me—the need for a continuing, strong, voluntary element in teacher training. That is why it came up with the idea of the three colleges going to the common site at Stranmillis, but preserving their legal identity, automony and distinctive contribution to teacher training. At the end of the day we may not be able to achieve that, but we must rationalise teacher training. I wish to do it as far as possible by agreement.
No final decisions have been made. Nothing could be further from my mind—again I shall probably upset the hon. Member for Down, North—than to attack the choice of parents to educate their children in the schools that they wish. Implicit in that is the right that those schools should be staffed by teachers whom they regard as having been trained properly.
I have to tell the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) that that does not mean that the 40 per cent. claim of the partition in Northern Ireland can be accepted. To do so would be to give the colleges of St. Mary's and St. Joseph's a virtual monopoly of training teachers for the Catholic schools in Northern Ireland. Historically, that has never been so. It would mean that the rest of the institutions would have a virtual monopoly of training teachers for the rest of the system. Whether that is practical or desirable is open to question. It may not be practical, because the universities would be prohibited by their charters from drawing a distinction between Catholic and Protestant students who offered themselves for teacher training courses. It would not be desirable, because to move towards a greater degree of segregation in training teachers in Northern Ireland would not be a path that we wish to tread.
An analogy has been drawn between Northern Ireland and Great Britain in terms of percentages. In Great Britain, the number of Catholics in the population represents about 10 per cent., and 10 per cent. of the places are therefore reserved for students to go to the Catholic training colleges. In Northern Ireland, with about 46 per cent. of the population being Catholic, it does not follow that something like that percentage should be reserved for the Catholic colleges. Apart from anything else, in the Catholic training colleges in Great Britain, up to one-half and on average nearly one-third of the students attending them are non-Catholics. One does not get the same sort of division in Northern Ireland.
In practice the percentages of students attending the different institutions in both Great Britain and Northern


Ireland have been preserved roughly at the point at which the decline in the demand for teachers to be trained existed. In 1975–76, about 26 or 27 per cent. of student teachers went to St. Mary's and St. Joseph's. Today, it is 25 per cent. Broadly, we have preserved that balance. Stranmillis alone has really suffered in the intervening years by a substantial reduction in the numbers going to that institution.
I do not want to delay the House. As I say, no final decisions have been made. I shall continue to seek agreement on this matter. I thought that it might be worth while to outline the position simply and to answer some of the matters raised in the debate.

Rev. Ian Paisley: I listened with great interest to what the Minister said about the controversy raging in Northern Ireland on teacher training. I regret that the hon. Gentleman was not more forthcoming about when the decision will be made. With the present question mark over teacher training, there is a great deal of concern in Northern Ireland and a special concern amongst teachers about their future.
The Minister has a duty to spell out to the House the timing that he has in mind for bringing this matter to finality. It must not be allowed to rumble on and on. The hon. Gentleman hopes to get agreement. But those of us who know the history of education in Northern Ireland are aware of the stand of the Roman Catholic Church for its own separate school system, largely subsidised by the State. The Roman Catholic Church very wisely kept its hands on its schools. The Protestant churches, wrongly in my view, handed their schools over, putting the Government in the position of being able to dictate education policies. However, that is history, which perhaps many hon. Members know nothing about and do not want to know anything about.
Having read the petition and having heard the statements made—not least the statement of the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) in the House the other day about a fight which the Minister could not win—I believe that the Minister has a duty to the people of Northern Ireland and to all people who are connected with education in Northern Ireland—to parents, teachers and student teachers alike—to give us some sort of time scale as to when he will come to a decision on this important matter. I trust that the Minister will be good enough—if he does not intervene again in the debate—to write and let us know what he thinks the time scale will be.
I put it on record that any body is entitled to run its own schools if it wants to. However, if it wants to do that it should pay for its own schools. As the Minister knows, his Department has made it clear to church schools in which I have been interested that not one penny will be received from his Government towards them and quite rightly so. The principle has to be arrived at some time in Northern Ireland that there should be one State system of education. At the end of the day, those that want a different system will have to come to an arrangement with the Government. However, I do not want to go into that matter tonight. I urge the Minister to come to a decision about it.
I understand that the Minister who is responsible for commerce will take part in this debate. I want to press him about a distressing constituency problem that has arisen

from the tragic announcement today of the closing down of British Enkalon. It will throw many hundreds of my constituents—and many hundreds of the constituents of the hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) —out of employment. It will not only do that but, as the hon. Gentleman knows, it will tear the industrial heart out of the town of Antrim. Anybody who knows the position in Antrim will be well aware that the modern town of Antrim was built around British Enkalon. The council of that town, those involved in commerce and trade, and the housing authorities, did everything in their power to facilitate British Enkalon. Antrim would not be the town it is today had it not been for the fact that British Enkalon opened its operations in the town.
I pay tribute to the managers of British Enkalon. When they were operating in Antrim they made a great contribution to the prosperity of the town. They were always helpful in problems that arose in the Antrim area. They had the benefit of many able employees who did a good job in producing the end product. Through British Enkalon, the town of Antrim was enlarged far beyond the bounds to which it would otherwise have grown.
We now have a very dark shadow hanging over the town of Antrim. We have the announcement today that in a few weeks' time the whole operation will be wound up. This has caused great sorrow, great frustration and great anger in the Antrim area. I am sure that the Minister is well aware of the matter. It has been under consideration for a considerable time.
Tonight it was announced that the directors of British Enkalon were prepared to hand over the factory free to the Government, but the Government refused that offer. I should like the Minister tonight to tell us something about it. [Interruption.] If he has already done so, I shall be able to read it in the Official Report. I was told that the debate would start at 10 pm, and I came to the House for that time. It is not my fault if I was not here earlier. I would have been here earlier if I had been told otherwise.
I shall read with interest what the Minister has said, but I must put on the record in the debate the amount of feeling that there is in Antrim. I do not know whether the Minister has made any proposals to the House as to what he intends to do about the matter of British Enkalon, or whether he sees any future for the factory. I know that the people of Antrim, as well as the people of Northern Ireland, are feeling very sore about the matter tonight.
It is well known that man-made fibres have been a vital part of the Northern Ireland economy, yet we have seen factory after factory close until Northern Ireland is becoming an economic wasteland. Britain used to boast about the Welfare State, but Northern Ireland now seems to be a Farewell State—farewell to security—

Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) for giving way. He has already explained why he was not here at the outset of the debate. Perhaps I can tell him that the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Patten), told the House that the expenditure which the central Government now undertake in Northern Ireland is 35 per cent. per capita higher than it is in the rest of the United Kingdom. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will bear that in mind during his remarks.

Rev. Ian Paisley: If the hon. Gentleman goes back into the history of Northern Ireland and the documents that


were published by the Government before the election of our first Assembly, he will notice that through the years Northern Ireland suffered very considerably and did not get its slice of the cake. That has been put on record by the official documents of the Government.
Secondly, I should like to tell the hon. Gentleman that in Northern Ireland the level of wages is lower than that in the rest of the United Kingdom. The cost of living in Northern Ireland is higher than that in the rest of the United Kingdom. The people of Northern Ireland, before the drastic cuts of this Government started to take effect, had already been cut to the bone. They were already carrying a cross. If the hon. Gentleman wants to put Northern Ireland on the same footing as the rest of the United Kingdom before we start off, and then seeks to ask us to bear the same share of the burdens, we shall be happy so to do, but it ill-becomes the hon. Gentleman, when we have the highest unemployment in the whole of the Common Market, to try to tell the people of Northern Ireland that they should be good boys and all sit down and nod approval to the disastrous policies pursued by this Government.

Mr. Garel-Jones: That is not what I am saying. I am asking the hon. Gentleman to bear in mind that my constituents and those of other hon. Members are carrying a considerable financial burden. We do not complain about that, but we have the right to ask in return that hon. Members who represent Northern Ireland constituencies should be seen to be doing their utmost to, for example, co-operate with the proposals put forward by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

Rev. Ian Paisley: It is a pity that we do not have proposals from the Secretary of State on the table. Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that the politicians of Northern Ireland should approve certain suggestions put to them at private meetings? We have not had one document produced by the Government to outline what they intend.
Even if there were an agreed Government for Northern Ireland, the dole queues would not suddenly disappear. There is an agreed Government for the rest of the United Kingdom, and the dole queues are increasing. Let no hon. Member think that because politicians sit round a table and agree the dole queues will disappear.
I also remind the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones) that the people of Northern Ireland pay the same taxes and carry the same individual burdens as people in any other part of the United Kingdom. Let him not imply that the people of Northern Ireland do not carry the same burden. Those people do not want charity; they want justice; and justice should be done and seen to be done in Northern Ireland, just as it is in other less-favoured areas in the United Kingdom.
I make no apology for raising the question of British Enkalon. It is a serious matter which will have a grave effect on the people of Northern Ireland. There is no doubt about that. Perhaps the hon. Member for Watford does not understand that the situation in Northern Ireland is one of near tragedy. I do not know how long it can go on before there is a terrible reaping.
Many problems face us in Northern Ireland and it is only right that I, as an elected representative of Northern Ireland people, should put on record in the House the serious situation at British Enkalon. I have spoken to the

Minister responsible for commerce and I know that he is aware of the issue. I want to know whether an offer was made to hand over the factory to the Government.
Northern Ireland's unemployment problem will not be solved merely by saying to private investors "Come in and invest". Without a commitment by the Government through public ownership and realistic and imaginative action we shall never be able to solve that problem.
The hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Ross) referred to the De Lorean Motor Company. I understand from a statement made tonight that six important businesses in Northern Ireland will have to close immediately unless something is done for them. They were creditors of the De Lorean company. This is a serious matter. I understand that six companies are almost on the rocks. I want to know why the two Government watchdog directors on the board of De Lorean, who were to carry out a policing operation to safeguard the interests of the Government's investment, permitted the company to boost its labour force to such a large extent, when it was known that the American market for De Lorean cars was sluggish? The sales of De Lorean cars in America were not going as had been prophesied by Mr. De Lorean. I cannot understand why the two Government-appointed directors allowed the labour force to be boosted, giving the false impression that employment was there.
Can the Minister say whether the creditors will be pressed to pay Inland Revenue charges and national insurance, in view of their serious cash flow problems? Can he enlarge on the statement in the Belfast Telegraph that the Secretary of State promised that VAT back payments would not be pressed at the moment? I am sure that he is aware of the crisis that has resulted from what has happened at De Lorean. I and the people of Northern Ireland wish Sir Kenneth Cork every success in v. hat he is trying very hard to do. I trust that he will be successful and that this company which is greatly needed in Northern Ireland will continue to operate, albeit to a lesser extent than was at first envisaged.
Can the Minister tell us what is happening about the bulk carrier for Harland and Wolff and what is the present position in that shipyard? These are matters of grave concern to all the people of Northern Ireland.
The Minister who is responsible for housing is not in the Chamber at present, but I must refer to the grave concern that exists tonight in the Province about the excessive rent rise that is to occur. I hear certain Unionist politicians weeping about the matter, although, when the vote to raise rents was taken by the Housing Executive, the representatives of the official Unionist Party on that executive voted for the rise. There is real concern, especially among old-age pensioners, about how people will meet these excessive rent rises. The Housing Executive should consider the sorry state of many of the houses before it goes ahead with the rent rise. There is a strange procedure in Northern Ireland whereby, when a person takes over the tenancy of a house with many defects which has been allocated to him by the Housing Executive, those defects that should have been put right are not taken into consideration and the rent rises. It is terrible that many who want to be housed are not able to take over the houses that are allocated to them until the necessary repairs are done. If they take them over before the work is done, they are put in an invidious position. That is something that the Government should consider.
I support wholeheartedly the remarks of the hon. Member for Londonderry about pilotage and the measures that should be taken for security reasons for the boats that use Londonderry harbour. As the Government have a financial stake and as the Irish Republican Army has been responsible for two outrages already, the Government should act along the lines suggested by the hon. Gentleman.

11 pm

The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Adam Butler): Even in the absence at this stage of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), I wish to say that we appreciate the fact that no appropriation debate goes by without the presence of the hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux). We recognise that there are special circumstances on this occasion that prevent him from being in his place.
I welcome the hon. Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. Dunn) to our debates. He has an advantage over the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Sandelson) in having experience of Northern Ireland matters, although I think that he would admit that even after a comparatively short time he is slightly out of touch with our affairs in detail. Nevertheless, we welcome his contribution.
I tell the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) that I shall deal, appropriately I hope, with British Enkalon and other issues that have been raised in detail. I hope that I shall be able to cover most of the matters to which hon. Members have referred in the time that is available. We should be grateful that for once we have been allowed a long debate. The duration of the debate has been comparable to a full length debate that provides a full afternoon and ends at 10 o'clock. We started at 6 o'clock and we shall have had about five and a half hours of debate when I resume my seat.
Issues of specific concern have been raised by hon. Members on behalf of their constituents that are of personal concern to them. I have had my belief reinforced that it would be very much better if such matters could be dealt with by Northern Ireland elected representatives in a Northern Ireland setting. We are continuing to work towards that goal.
Separate from that strain is the feature that in appropriation debates we have a general critique—it is not always criticism—of the Government's economic policy and its effect on Northern Ireland. Ministers are under an obligation to respond to that and to the more particular questions.
In placing the order and the spring Supplementary Estimates in a wider context, I stress that the well-being of the Northern Ireland economy is inextricably linked with that of the United Kingdom as a whole. Consequently, the broad thrust of the Government's economic policy must apply in Northern Ireland as elsewhere. For example, as the Government's policy works through and interest rates come down, that must help the cash position of companies and farmers and all those who, regrettably, have been so much involved with the banks in recent times.
Secondly, I stress that, notwithstanding the importance that the Government attach to public expenditure restraint as a component of our overall economic policy, the allocation of resources to Northern Ireland reflects its

special needs. It ill-becomes the hon. Member for Antrim, North to speak in terms of cuts when a Government who, for very good reason, are following a policy of public expenditure restraint still find it possible to spend as significantly as we are spending in Northern Ireland.
Per capita public expenditure in Northern Ireland is currently 35 to 40 per cent. higher than on comparable programmes in Great Britain. Moreover, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced on 6 January, an additional £90 million has been earmarked for 1982–83 compared with the figure in the last public expenditure White Paper. This brings the planned figure for that year to more than £3, 500 million. Although that is not a net figure, as there is a flow in the other direction, it still represents a very substantial subvention indeed flowing from the Exchequer, from Great Britain, into Northern Ireland.
The basic message contained in those facts is not new, nor is it my intention to suggest that this represents more than Northern Ireland's fair share of resources, because Northern Ireland is not the only region that benefits from higher than average per capita expenditure. But the facts demonstrate that the Government have responded to the needs of the Province as positively as economic circumstances permit, and are continuing to do so.
About £550 million has been spent in support of the Province's industry since the Government came to office. Indeed, the per capita expenditure on industrial development in Northern Ireland is proportionately far higher than that on overall expenditure, to which I have referred. This year more than 360 companies will benefit under the selective industrial development scheme, as will more than 1, 300 companies under the non-selective capital grant scheme.
Our industrial promotion drive therefore continues unabated. There is no question of lack of political will, as the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Soley) for the Labour Party tried to suggest, although we certainly exhibit an absence of recklessness in the spending of the public's money.
One must ask what the Labour Party wants. One can agree with the hon. Gentleman that more should be done for the construction industry. That industry will benefit substantially from the £50 million worth of capital expenditure on housing to which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State referred. We can agree to some extent on the need for support for new technology, which is very much a part of our industrial development strategy, but we cannot agree that all the money going into high technology development should come from the Government. That is not necessary and I believe that it would tend to lead to disaster because of the ultimate lack of commercial pressure on the Government. It would also be an inefficient use of resources.
The hon. Gentleman referred to what he described as the high-risk area. However painful the reference may be, I must ask whether he wants a string of De Lorean's, with all the heartache, despair and waste involved. I do not believe that he is prepared to stand up and say that.

Mr. Soley: It is not a question whether it is De Lorean. As the Minister well knows from the approaches with the development agency, and as the CBI has said, the Government must put money into high-risk areas. Now that we are on the subject, will the Minister deal with the matter of political will? Is he saying that he knows that


there is no possibility of keeping the British Enkalon plant going because he has explored the subject with the trade unions and the relevant industrialists? Can he tell us that and prove that he has the political will?

Mr. Butler: I assure the hon. Gentleman that I shall deal with that aspect later. He should not equate political will with the scattering of public money, without any regard to the commercial consequences and the damage which it does to others through the borrowing or taxing of that money.
The hon. Member for Hammersmith, North also said that we should subsidise energy costs to the lowest equivalent in Great Britain. I suggest that it would be wrong to ask the industry and consumers in Great Britain—I use that term to distinguish between the two areas—to subsidise energy costs to below what the consumer and industry in Northern Ireland are paying. I must ask the hon. Gentleman what his party did. When we came to power we found that the domestic consumer was paying 22 per cent. above the Great Britain average. Had the Labour Party done anything about that? The answer is "No". To hold energy and electricity costs down to the highest level in Great Britain we are now spending about £80 million in the current year.
That massive subsidy is justified, but we cannot go further. Therefore, our industrial promotion drive continues unabated, supported by a wealth of political will.
Hon. Members will be particularly conscious of the drive which we have put behind the overseas promotional effort, with a view to achieving further success in attracting new manufacturing projects to Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State and I will certainly be continuing our utmost personal efforts on that aspect. However, I must again draw hon. Members' attention to the problems which we face in attracting investment from outside Northern Ireland. There are two or perhaps three major obstacles in attracting such investment. First, the current recessionary conditions which are affecting every developed country. In spite of these, we have had some notable successes in recent years by way of new investment—firms such as Hyster—and the expansion of by now well-established companies such as Hughes Tool and General Motors with its subsidiary—Fisher Body. As the recession passes and Americans and other industrious overseas countries become more investment inclined, we can expect—for that reason alone—further investment in Northern Ireland.
My second point—which I have not raised before—is on the uncertainty created in the minds of potential investors by those who advocate Britain's withdrawal from the Common Market. That will not happen, but, when it is stated and discussed in Britain, it is also discussed in North America. I know that fact from personal experience. A good reason why American investment—Japanese investment to a much lesser extent—is located in the United Kingdom is because Britain is a jumping-board for sales into the Common Market as a whole, and into Continental Europe.
When doubt is cast on that aspect by the right hon. Member for Down, South, he does harm to the cause which I am sure that he subscribes to—trying to overcome the unemployment situation in Northern Ireland.
We have discussed my third point many times—the obstacle that Northern Ireland's image projects overseas.
I do not expect the damage that is caused to weigh heavily on the minds of those who wilfully or mindlessly attempt to perpetuate this image as they inflict damage on life and property. Their politics are, at best, Marxist and, at worst, anarchist and other countries share some of the same problems. The accepted perception of Northern Ireland as an unsafe and politically unstable place continues to be the major impediment to our attracting overseas investment.
There are some encouraging signs of a renewed downward trend in the level of violence. What is needed and what the people of Northern Ireland and of the rest of the United Kingdom have the right to expect of its elected representatives is some outward expression of concern for the common good of the people of Northern Ireland. This is not served by adherence to selfish sectional interests and emphasis on the issues which divide the community. There must be a manifestation of a willingness to work together. We do not expect that from the extremists. If, however, we can be seen to work constructively together, 1 have little doubt that the abundance of good will which exists for an end to the Northern Ireland problem could be translated into effective investment and job opportunities for people who have amply demonstrated their willingness and ability to work.
I turn now to the question of British Enkalon and the closure announcement that has overshadowed our debate. It is a matter of bitter disappointment to all those who have worked so hard to try to avoid this day. I do not think that the closure of British Enkalon is typical of the Northern Ireland industrial scene as a whole. It is a fact that the Courtaulds and the ICI man-made fibres plants shut down. I believe, however, that they are the casualties of an industry that over-expanded and is now having to contract in the light of over-capacity throughout the world.
Man-made fibre production in Northern Ireland has existed for over 20 years. Some still exists and it will, hope, be able to survive. We have at least had the benefit of 20 years' investment from these companies. It would have been difficult for me and the Department of Commerce to be more involved in the matter. This involvement extends from the summer when we fought off the initial closure decision to telephone calls over the weekend and again early this morning.
I refute any suggestion that we have not worked with the unions. The hon. Member for Hammersmith, North—I hope that I am not doing him a disservice—criticised the Government for lack of involvement. I prefer to take the view of Mr. John Freeman, the senior representative of the Transport and General Workers Union in Northern Ireland. I did not hear his interview this morning, but I have been given what I believe is an accurate report The drift of his remarks about the Enkalon closure was that, while he did not in general agree with Government policies, he thought that the Minister—it is good of him to say so—and his officials had done everything in their power to avert closure.
As the House will recall, the Government provided a substantial sum of money last August to keep the plant operating in the hope that it could have a viable future. I talked to the directors of the parent company on Thursday. They made it clear that the decision in August had been to postpone closure. They also made it clear that they saw no reasonable prospect of viability. They added that despite the efforts of local management and unions—they


were rightly complimentary about the progress and cooperation that had been shown—further losses were forecast.
I made it clear that the Government would consider again making available substantial sums of money if there was potential viability. But the directors were not prepared to consider any short-term measures. It was their strategic and commercial judgment looking at the longer term, that the plant should close. They took into account tens of millions of pounds of losses, current unprofitability and likely future unprofitability as they saw it and as the work force plan saw it, at least in the short term. They also took into account over-capacity in the industry.
It has been asked whether a buyer approached the company some time ago. I have no knowledge of that and I am not sure that hon. Members should expect me to know about that commercial matter. However, although the Government are prepared to examine any viable future for the plant, it would be wrong for hon. Members to go away with the impression that there was any probability other than closure. We cannot lightly reject the view of Enkalon, which knows its market and understands the production of man-made fibres.
The good sense and excellence of the work force has been demonstrated and that should be attractive to anyone who might take over the company, or to companies that wish to move to Antrim. In addition, with hindsight I can be even more glad than I was at the time about the decision—shown to be wise—to increase the discretionary capital grant available in Antrim to 50 per cent. I hope that that will prove a strong magnet to new investment.
I have about 10 minutes left in which to speak, and therefore I shall turn to the second main industrial worry, De Lorean. The two receiver managers appointed by the Government are considering the company's position constructively and are doing all that they can—probably through the restructuring of the company—to give it a future. Hon. Members will have read Sir Kenneth Cork's optimistic statements. He is in contact with all the parties that have shown an interest. In his position as joint manager, he is trying to sell the stock of finished cars and the company still produces, although at a very low rate.
We must hope that Sir Kenneth Cork's optimism is justified. He will certainly receive all proper Government support in his efforts. Hon. Members asked about the suppliers, about whom I am equally concerned. The Secretary of State and I have—quite exceptionally in such circumstances—seen suppliers from Northern Ireland and Great Britain. This morning, the Secretary of State saw a group of suppliers. He expressed the greatest possible sympathy but had to say firmly that De Lorean was responsible for its debts and that the Government would not and could not take on that responsibility. That message has, of course, received publicity. However, I hope that equal publicity will be given to the fact that the Secretary of State also said that if a company was in serious trouble because of the De Lorean crisis, but was otherwise viable, any application for assistance towards the maintenance of employment would be considered on its merits, in the same way as any other such application.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson) asked about the role of the receivers. As I must be brief, it might be better if I were to study my hon. Friend's precise questions and to reply to him later.
Basically, the Department of Commerce as debenture holder appointed receivers at the invitation of the company directors. They passed a resolution asking the Department of Commerce to appoint receivers. That followed their failure to find further funding from the public sector, the Secretary of State having made it clear that there would be no more public money. When they found that they could not continue trading, they asked the Department of Commerce to appoint receivers.
The immediate role of the receiver is to protect the interests of the debenture holders and to have a proper regard to the interests of all the creditors. In addition, the receivers issued a statement saying that, if the company could be restructured and sold as a going concern, that would be a way in which they would approach the receivership.
The third main subject raised in the debate was Harland and Wolff, a matter that concerns us all. Many hon. Members mentioned it. My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury stressed absolutely correctly the vital importance of securing the British Steel order. I do not believe that there is a prospect of it going elsewhere, but still negotiations continue and the deal has yet to be clinched.
The relationship with British Shipbuilders was raised at Question Time in the House last Thursday. I shall be able to deal with it at slightly greater length than on that occasion. First, in reply to the point made by my hon. Friend, it is not correct to say that no engine orders have been placed by British Shipbuilders with Harland and Wolff. Since vesting day the number has added up to 14, some of those being the slow speed engines that are of considerable work content and worth.
Generally in regard to the relationship between British Shipbuilders and Harland and Wolff, there is co-operation and liaison in a number of areas on the building of large ships and there are inquiries for a number of ships that require the joint resources of the two companies in order to meet customers' delivery requirements. There is free exchange of information in research and development and statistics.
With regard to engine building, it is worth pointing out that while Harland and Wolff has benefited from British Shipbuilders' orders, there has been no reciprocal arrangement. Those who would ask for more work to be transferred, although there is no power of direction on Government in any case, must bear in mind first that British Shipbuilders is also a commercial organisation and, secondly, that in engine building its work force has been cut substantially.
The hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) referred to the youth training programme. There is no question of its being too little too late. We will put in £42 million in the coming financial year, which is a substantial sum of money by any reckoning. As for its being too late, we shall be one year ahead of what is happening in Great Britain. We can be proud of that as a Province, not just as a Government. It is a comprehensive scheme dealing with all 16-year-olds and by the second year all 17-yearolds who do not have employment. That will have an important impact on the quality, adaptability and suitability of our young people for work.
I for one do not subscribe to the view that the Northern Ireland economy is on the point of collapse. There is no doubt that there is a serious situation. No one can be


unmoved by our unemployment rate of nearly one in five and what that means for countless families throughout the Province.
The Government are putting substantial resources into industrial development. They are taking exceptional steps to look after the Province's young people. We welcome all suggestions on how to maximise our efforts within the resources available. I look forward to our debates in Committee and on the Floor of the House on the industrial development board and how that can contribute. We look for the support of all men of good will in the Province in our undoubted uphill task.
I commend the draft order to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved.
That the draft Appropriation (Northern Ireland) Order 1982, which was laid before this House on 16 February, be approved.

Northern Ireland (Limitation Amendment)

The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. John Patten): I beg to move,
That the draft Limitation Amendment (Northern Ireland) Order 1982, which was laid before this House on 4th February, be approved.
Limitation of actions is a technical branch of our law. Nevertheless, it is of importance not only to practising lawyers but to all who might at any time have business that takes them into the civil courts. Any citizen of Northern Ireland could have recourse to civil action.
The prime object of the law in this area is to prevent the bringing of stale actions and to encourage plaintiffs who want to bring actions to start those actions as soon as possible or to decide not to do so. Another object is to relieve potential defendants from the burden of defending claims on which the dust can be said to have settled.. The law aims to hold a balance between the differing interests of the parties who might be involved.
The order implements all but two of the recommendations contained in the Law Reform Committee's final report—the 1977 report—on the law of limitation and corresponds to the Limitation Amendment Act 1980, which introduced similar provisions for England and Wales in all but two minor respects.
I do not propose to describe each article in detail. I hope that hon. Members will find that they have been adequately described in the explanatory document that has been circulated. However, I must in passing refer to articles 4, 5, 7, 9 and 14, which call for some elaboration over the detail that has been given in the explanatory document.
Article 4 deals with the difficulty that has arisen in the law relating to loans—typically loans between members of a family or friends. The present law is that the lender's cause of action accrues at the time when the loan is made. The operation of this rule means that the lender will lose his right to recover the loan six years later. If, for example, an aunt lends money to her nephew and leaves the loan outstanding for six years, her right to recover it will have vanished completely after that time. The effect of article 4 is that time would not begin to run against the aunt until she had made a written demand to her nephew asking for repayment. That solution, following the final report of the Law Reform Committee, is more appropriate to relatively informal arrangements of the sort that prevail in family circumstances.
Article 5 implements the Law Reform Committee s recommendation that, where property is stolen, the owner's rights against the thief should never be barred by lapse of time. The present law is that an owner of goods loses his rights of recovery against a thief six years after his property is stolen. That is an absurd position. There is surely no justification in law in principle for giving a thief good title to property as against the owner at any time during the life of that thief. Article 5 remedies that injustice so that a thief can no longer set up what is called a defence of limitation, but it protects a subsequent purchaser for value who has acted in good faith. Article 5 removes an absurdity in the law that I hope will be welcomed.
Article 7 will have an important effect on that branch of land law known as adverse possession, a complicated topic. In future, when determining whether occupation of land is adverse to the owner's rights, thereby leading to the extinguishment of his title to that land, the courts will be obliged to look at the actual facts of the case before holding that an implied licence had been granted by the owner to occupy that land. This article has been found necessary in order to clear up any misunderstandings there might have been due to recently decided cases. There was a considerable area open to doubt and debate.
Article 9 provides that no acknowledgement or part payment made in respect of a claim after the expiry of the relevant limitation period shall operate to revive a remedy that has already become statute-barred. That will reverse the existing rule.
I turn now to article 14 which does not appear in the order as it was published as a proposal. Its inclusion arises as a result of representations made by members of the Northern Ireland judiciary and legal profession after the consultation period for the order had ended. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members, particularly from Northern Ireland constituencies, will accept that the Government have been flexible and reasonable in taking into account serious and soundly based representations from the legal profession which were made after the final date for consultation had passed.
It was represented—and we have acted on these representations—that the limitation rule in respect of claims against the land registry insurance fund, a fund designed to compensate persons who suffer loss as a result of mistakes in the Land Registry, was such as was clearly liable to cause injustice to those people, weighting matters against the individual and in favour of the State. That needed to be remedied.
The present rule is that claims must be brought within six years of the date of erroneous registration in the Land Registry. That could indeed lead to cases of injustice such as this. It could easily arise that a mistake in the registry might not come to light until after the expiry of the present limitation period due to the length of time that had elapsed between the transactions in one piece of property.
Article 14 lays down a new principle which is much more generous to claimants than that which it replaces. If the order is passed time will not begin to run against the claimant until the date when he or she discovers the mistake, or could, with reasonable diligence, have discovered it. I hope that hon. Members will agree that this is a much fairer rule which substitutes the date of discovery of the mistake for the date of the making of the mistake. This is in the interests of the individual: interests that it is important to protect against inadvertent mistakes in Government Departments.
Because of the need to consider the representations to which I have referred and then to settle on the appropriate reformulation of this complicated legislation, there has been some delay in the order coming before the House. I consider the delay not to have been time wasted, however. Rather, it has been time used to enable the Government to reflect on the opinions of those who are concerned with the day-to-day workings of the rules that the House makes, and to get it right rather than to get it wrong and have to correct it subsequently.
The order is a complex but important piece of law reform legislation which commands, to the best of my knowledge, the support of the legal profession in Northern Ireland. As such I commend it to the House.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: It could hardly be an enviable task for the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Patten) to have to present to the House an order dealing with a subject of the intense complexity of this one. There was a moment earlier in today's procedures when the appearance of the "sly shade" of the Solicitor-General at the far end of the Treasury Bench suggested to observers from this distance that perhaps he might be undertaking this liturgy rather than the hon. Gentleman. But the hon. Gentleman seems to be increasingly cast by the Northern Ireland Office in the role of a maid of all work, and it turns out that this was his work, too.
Those of us on this Bench in particular have often criticised the procedure by Order in Council for legislation in Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, in connection with this order there are at any rate two incidental advantages of the procedure that might be noted.
This is not the first legislation amending earlier limitations legislation. One notes—I believe that I am correct in this—that the improvement in the law of limitations in Great Britain, which was brought about by an Act of 1939, was not reproduced in the law of Northern Ireland until 1958—a gap of 19 years, although, admittedly, six or seven of those years were occupied largely by other kind of business. In this case we are, after an interval of less than two years, albeit apologised for by the hon. Gentleman on the ground of its length, extending to Northern Ireland the improvements of the law that were made for Great Britain by the 1980 Act. That is a considerable improvement in narrowing the gap between the law in Northern Ireland and that in the rest of the United Kingdom.
Secondly, although the procedure of proposal and draft order does not allow for the full range of amendment that Committee procedure permits, nevertheless, we have yet another example in the case of this order where representations made on the basis of the proposals have actually resulted in the draft order being better when presented to the House than it was in its original form. That difference—the addition of paragraph 14—is a point on which my hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry (Mr. Ross), who has made some study of the matter, may be addressing you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I wish to address only two questions to the Minister for clarification. The first is regarding article 5. I take it that the law whereby the purchaser for value acting in good faith acquires title to the stolen property after six years is not itself an innovation produced by the order, but that the innovation is the maintenance of the right of suit against the thief or a person culpably handling the stolen goods.
It still remains, in one sense, unsatisfactory that after six years the good title to goods that have been stolen should pass from the true owner even to a person who acquired them eventually in good faith. I believe that in that respect the limitation is less severe in this country than on the Continent, although no doubt the European Court of Human Rights will presently discover that there is a human right which requires us to amend our law so as to make the limitation in this country as short as it is on the Continent.
I am probably not the only hon. Member who recalls with irritation the episode of the Burghfield effigy, which, having been stolen from a church in Berkshire, and having been purchased by an antiquary in Belgium, had to be repurchased for several thousands of pounds, I believe, by a not wealthy church, albeit with assistance from other sources of finance. Though I agree that there must be some limitation, it is a pity that we have the six-year period still applying as between the original owner and the purchaser for value acting in good faith. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will be good enough to verify that in that respect there has been no change in the law and that the change is related only to the situation as between the original owner and the thief or a culpable handler.
My only other question relates to article 11, which extends the provisions to the Admiralty Division of the High Court. Is it really the case that these limitations have not applied hitherto to Admiralty jurisdiction, and how came it that Admiralty jurisdiction enjoyed this peculiar privilege until this late stage of our history? Perhaps there is some misunderstanding, but, on the face of it, it is a curious point which perhaps the Minister—he will be assisted in this by what my hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry has to say—may be able to explain.

Mr. William Ross: When the limitation which has now been corrected by the insertion of article 14 was first brought to my notice about a year ago, I was soon made aware that the judiciary and the solicitors in Northern Ireland were taking up the matter with the Northern Ireland Office, as I did subsequently.
I thought at first that it was the result of sloppy drafting that the six years ran from the date of the original purchase. Later, in the course of my investigations, I discovered that this was not so, but that the law in Northern Ireland derived from the original law for all of Ireland prior to 1920 and that the original draft of this order used the practice and language which was used in the Dublin Act of 1964 which was to overhaul the law in the Republic.
It is an interesting reflection on the history of the British Isles that the separate body of law in Ireland operated in this fashion so many years after the separation of the Republic from the rest of the United Kingdom.
In those circumstances, it was with great pleasure that I received a letter from the Minister of State on 15 December telling me that article 14 had been inserted in the draft order and that it would meet the problem which had originally been brought to my attention. One of my constituents had suffered considerable financial loss because of the existing law, which has now been corrected. I am very pleased that the matter has been brought to this satisfactory conclusion and that in future other cases, a great many of which possibly have not yet come to light, will not result in any financial loss following the change which has been made.
I wish to put one or two questions to the Minister. The first refers to article 14(3). It appears that the heir of an owner can be caught, whereas the person who buys the property in question can start running the six years from the date of purchase. Is my understanding correct? Someone who inherits property is caught by the sin of omission of his father, whereas someone who buys the property has a second bite at the cherry. Is that just? Should each individual owner, whether an heir or a buyer,

not stand on the same footing? That may be a further effect which will cause problems in the future. I should be grateful if the Minister would look at that matter.
At one time I was also moved to wonder whether, by paragraph 3 of schedule 9 of the 1970 Act, people in Northern Ireland were being treated less generously than those in Great Britain. I should be obliged if the Minister would investigate that and write to me to let me know whether my fears are well founded. I should not like to tell the people of Ulster that they are on an equal footing with the folk in the rest of the Kingdom, only to discover in a year or two that in some respects they might be rather worse off.
I feel a very real satisfaction at the happy outcome of my representations, which I know were backed by the judiciary and by the solicitors. I am grateful to the Minister and his right hon. and hon. Friends for the care with which they investigated the complaints that were made, which they brought to such a happy conclusion. The most relieved person of all is my constituent, who now finds that he will be able to recover the sums that he lost because the legislation is retrospective. I am exceedingly grateful for that.

Mr. John Patten: I am pleased to take the opportunity to reply to this short and probing debate on a highly technical part of the law.
The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) correctly referred to the fact that we have made rather more satisfactory progress this time in amending legislation in the Province than we did in the 19-year gap between the 1939 and 1958 legislation.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned two points on articles 5 and 11. I say clearly and unequivocally in connection with his question on article 5 that his supposition is correct. Those buying goods in good faith are protected, but—and it is an important rider—after six years the good title goes to the bona fide purchaser. The true owner can still thereafter sue the thief. I hope that that short explanation will be adequate for the right hon. Gentleman.
The right hon. Gentleman also raised an extremely interesting—although to me slightly obscure—point on article 11 about Admiralty jurisdiction. It is correct that Admiralty jurisdiction was not covered by the 1958 Act. By the provisions of the order, if accepted by the House, that will now be reversed. I hope that that satisfies the right hon. Gentleman on the point of substance. I should like to write to the right hon. Gentleman at a later stage in order to give him all the background and the legal reasons for the exemption of the Admiralty in the 1958 legislation.
The right hon. Gentleman also referred to article 14. However, I must reply to his hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry (Mr. Ross) on that matter, as he has taken such a great interest in the clear injustice that was done to one of his constituents. If it is not egregious to do so, I should like to pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for the vigorous way in which he has pursued the point to a successful conclusion, I hope, from his point of view and also that of any individuals in the Province who might, had it not been for his vigilance, have been faced with exactly the same kind of problem.
It is true that the detailed points that the hon. Gentleman raised on subsequent matters would be better dealt with in a letter. He has invited me to write to him and give those


details. Following our consideration of these matters, I am only too pleased to undertake to do so as quickly as possible. I assure the hon. Gentleman that his interpretation of paragraph 3 of article 14 is correct in this context.
I am happy to commend the order to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, 
That the draft Limitation Amendment (Northern Ireland) Order 1982, which was laid before this House on 4th February, be approved.

FIRE SERVICE COLLEGE BOARD (ABOLITION) BILL [LORDS]

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 66 (Second Reading Committees),

That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Question agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

P110 Aircraft

Motion made, and Question proposed,  That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Lang.]

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: While I have a general interest, as a Reserve Army Officer, in the P110 aircraft, in very much the same way as my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Thorne), I have a direct constituency interest, as many hundreds of my constituents work for Ferranti in Edinburgh. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Lee) also has many constituents who work for Ferranti.
I thank the Minister in particular most warmly for having taken the trouble to visit Ferranti in Scotland recently in order to see the very important work that is done by the company. A considerable number of people work for the company and make the inertial navigation system and the combined display for the Tornado. It is a matter of concern for my constituents that eventually there will be slow-down in the Tornado programme, but a subject of similar concern might arise if the P110 is not developed.
The P110 today, quite simply, has a similar significance for the security of Britain as the Spitfire had in its day. It is a single-seat twin-engined fighter and will be the best of its kind in the world. Like the Spitfire, it is entirely British. It bears all the hallmarks of the same genius and initiative. Indeed, the whole British aerospace industry regards the P110 as having a better performance for its cost than any competitor expected to be available between 1989 and 2000.
The confidence of British Aerospace that the P110 is a world-beater is evident from the amount of money already invested in it by all concerned, British Aerospace having already invested £9 million to date. However, the risks of private funding beyond mid-1982 will rapidly become unacceptable without a Government commitment to the project, which is why an early statement of intent is essential.
The P110 in its air-to-air role is an aircraft capable of very quick reaction and response. It can take off in 300 metres and can climb vertically, accelerating as it goes. It is a fighter with a multi-role capability and has exceptional performance in both air combat and ground attack roles. Excluding the United States of America, it is likely that there will be requirements for many hundreds of this category of aircraft.
This totally British venture is vital to the future of the British aerospace industry. As well as British Aerospace and Ferranti, Rolls-Royce, Marconi, Lucas, Dowty and Smith's Industries are all involved and are contributing to the project.
Moreover, it is estimated that by the end of the decade at least 50, 000 jobs in the aerospace industry and its suppliers in the supply and service industries may depend on it.
Ferranti is involved in many of the technologies that would be used in equipping the P110, including the inertial navigation system, the advanced electronic and moving map displays, the laser rangers and the radars, as well as other forms of equipment. Taking the lowest sales estimate


for such an advanced fighter as the P110, its importance to Ferranti in future years would probably be equal to, or greater than, the current Tornado programme.
However, towards the end of the 1980s, Tornado orders will be largely fulfilled and, unless other programmes arrive to fill the gap, the large production base and skilled work force built up to meet current commitments will be run down to a level sufficient to deal with a much lower level of activity. That would probably cause redundancies in an area which can ill afford them.
Furthermore, if the P110 does not go ahead it could lead to an irrevocable loss of the associated indigenous technologies. Yet the military need for such systems will not disappear and, when a new fighter aircraft is finally ordered for the RAF, as must eventually occur, the capability to make vital elements will have vanished and expensive imports would be necessary. The application of craft skills on high technology areas has always been an important element in the pursuit of export business. Now that the Third world, with its abundant labour, can meet the requirements of our former mass markets, it is even more important for us to rely on exporting our high technology.
High technology does not stand still; and if that profitable area of British expertise is to be maintained and extended industry needs to receive timely Government encouragement. Therefore, support for the P110 is crucial for industry, for continuing technological advance and for employment. Many other countries in the Middle East and Europe, including a possible consortium are interested in buying the P110, and thereby contributing to its development.
Those bodies are waiting for the Government to give a commitment in principle to the project. An RAF order would not only strengthen the front-line capability of the RAF but would confer credibility on the programme and it is the key to participation in the project by other countries. Once that is achieved, with the necessary finance, a snowball effect would result.
Aircraft would be sold and other countries outside the initial participants would also order the aircraft, causing the production run to continue and employment to be maintained. The financial return to Britain could be great, including not only the return from direct sales of the P110 to overseas customers but the spin-off in terms of avionics equipment being incorporated in other foreign aircraft programmes.
For example, where a country has an aircraft industry but lacks the capability to design the most advanced military avionics I think of countries such as Brazil, India and Italy—it might make orders for avionics equipment in the wake of the P110 development. However sales to foreign customers of new, untried equipment are rare. Successful export is invariably in equipment which has first been installed and successfully operated in British aircraft.
Apart from any advantages which an industrial alliance could promote, commercial opportunities in areas other than defence are bound to be generated and the implications of that for industry, particularly oil, banking and insurance, should not be overlooked.
As I mentioned at the outset, the P110 can be likened to the Spitfire in its time. Just as the Spitfire played a key role in winning the Battle of Britain, we are now facing a different, but similarly daunting challenge. Today winning the Battle of Britain means securing exports in

foreign markets to assist our balance of payments; it means retaining or increasing employment , and it involves remaining in the forefront of aerospace, technology.
It must be impressed on my hon. Friend that if we fail to develop the P110 an estimated 50, 000 jobs in Britain will be at risk by the end of the decade and we will be in danger of losing a huge slice of technology. In short, if we falter or vacillate the British economy will be weakened, because we shall be compelled to rely on a less good aircraft from an overseas supplier and it will probably be equipped with its own national avionics and equipment. It should never be forgotten that the avionics equipment account for about one-third of the total cost of this sort of military aircraft. If we succeed, employment will be retained, as well as creating more, and entire communities will benefit thereby, which must include not least of all local tradesmen and services, as well as everyone else. Above all, our high technology will be maintained, and Britain will continue to be a world leader in aerospace.
I cannot do better than end with the words of the Prime Minister when she spoke at the Farnborough International Eightieth Flying Display dinner on 3 September 1980. What she said then is every bit as important and true today'. She said:
The fact is that we will not get the export orders we seek, unless we are also producing for the home market.
She also said, with far-sighted realism:
A view needs to be taken by the Ministry of Defence and other public procurement authorities of likely requirements well into the future.
She continued, well aware of the need to safeguard the national interest in this connection:
The procurement budget of Government and the skills of our people, if used together to the best advantage, could bring the country far larger sums, greater benefits both to our Armed Services and to our industries, and more jobs at the same time.
Finally, she summed up most powerfully the crux of the matter with these words:
The importance of the aerospace industry to the British economy cannot be over-estimated. Indeed, if we had to produce the ideal example of an industry with high added value export products, we need look no further than aerospace.

Mr. John Lee: I speak with the kind permission of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton), and I am flattered to follow his excellent speech in favour of the P110.
As my hon. Friend the Minister will know, North-East Lancashire is the centre of a substantial aerospace industry, but it is experiencing severe pressure on two fronts: first, because of the international recessionary effects on Rolls-Royce at Barnoldswick, and secondly because of the rephasing of the Tornado project., As the Member for Nelson and Colne, I have been in correspondence with many of the aerospace subcontractors in my constituency, for whom hundreds of my constituents work—with Lucas, Burnley Engineering Products Ltd., Earby Light Engineers Ltd., Cleveland Guest Ltd. and Weston Electric Units Ltd., as well as Rolls-Royce. I understand that 300 redundancies are a direct result of the rephasing of the Tornado project in North-East Lancashire alone. I am happy to provide my hon. Friend with the evidence that is contained in the correspondence.
Too often the cause of aerospace subcontractors goes by default. The question of jobs in aerospace both for the main contractors and subcontractors has been covered by


my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West. It is vital that we endeavour to keep together our skilled aerospace engineering teams, albeit at the present reduced levels because of the pressures that I mentioned. I hope that the Minister will give some words of encouragement to the aerospace industry in North-East Lancashire, in terms of the prospect of the Government giving substantial backing to the P110, and thus giving my constituents in the aerospace industry some hope in the mid-1980s and beyond.

Mr. Neil Thorne: With the permission of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton), I am delighted to participate in this important debate and follow his excellent speech.
He may know that he has raised a matter that is of considerable interest to a number of hon. Members. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) is away from the House on parliamentary business, otherwise he and a number of other hon. Members on the same duty would have been here for this debate.
My hon. Friend modestly mentioned his general interest in this subject, without any reference to the long and distinguished connection that his family has had with aviation. If I am not mistaken, his father was the first man to fly over Everest. He did so long before Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tensing reached the top on foot.
Modesty is a family handicap of the British and it spreads to national matters as well. When we invent a masterpiece, we seem often to let the opportunities to exploit it slip through our fingers. The Plessey company is important to my constituency, with its splendid ability to provide specialist subcontract work in most areas of defence. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will be able to give us some encouraging news about an order for the P110. It seems to be another one of the designs that could have a promising future if the Government are prepared to show their confidence in the home product.

The Under-Secretary of State for Defence Procurement (Mr. Geoffrey Pattie): I am glad to have the opportunity to respond to the debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) on the diligence and tenacity with which he has pursued this project and the interests of his constituents. Within a few weeks he has written to me about the P110, asked a question about it and achieved the hat trick of raising the matter on the Adjournment.
I am glad that my hon. Friends the Members for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Lee) and for Ilford, South (Mr. Thorne) have been able to contribute to the debate. The comments that they have made have been noted by me, especially those of my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne. It is well appreciated that when the prime contractors are pulling back work inside the factory the smaller companies tend to suffer. We are well aware of that but doubly grateful to him for reminding the House of it once again.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West has told us eloquently that the issue is important for his constituency and for the United Kingdom's aerospace

industry as a whole. I assure him and my other hon. Friends that we are extremely conscious of the importance of the project. I have visited some of the firms concerned, including British Aerospace at Warton on several occasions, and recently the Ferranti factory at Silverknowse, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West knows. He will appreciate that no opportunity has been lost by those whom I have met during my visits to impress upon me the crucial place that they see for the project in their future programmes.
I know that it will come as no surprise to my hon. Friends, especially my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West after our recent exchanges, that I am not able at this stage to make the commitment that he would like me to make to back the P110 for the Royal Air Force. While we are doing all that we can through ministerial and other contacts to assist industry in promoting the P110 with potential customers overseas, it is simply not possible, at a time when our future combat aircraft requirements and options are very much under study, to anticipate what the outcome of our studies will be and to make the sort of commitment that he advocates.
To place the subject of the P110 in context, I believe it will be helpful to remind the House of the background to the current situation. The House will know that we are at present up-dating much of the RAF's fleet of front line aircraft by equipping it with the Tornado—the multi-role combat aircraft developed by the United Kingdom in collaboration with the Federal Republic of Germany and with Italy. The interdictor strike version of Tornado is now entering service with the RAF, and deliveries of the air defence variant are expected to commence in the mid-1980s. By the end of the present decade, 385 Tornados will have been delivered to the RAF.
We also plan to bring into service during the 1980s the Harrier GR5 aircraft, which is the product of the joint AV8B programme with the United States of America, to build improved aircraft using the vertical-short take off and landing technology developed on the Harrier. We shall ultimately have 60 GR5s from which to augment the RAF's existing Harrier force.
In addition to these two major programmes, which together involve a massive commitment of defence funds during the current decade, it had been planned to develop against Air Staff target No. 403 a new combat aircraft to replace the Jaguar in the early nineties. To this end the aerospace industries of the United Kingdom, France and Germany, as well as the Air Forces and Government officials of the three countries, have worked together over the past few years on the possible collaborative development of a European combat aircraft.
However, when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence carried out his appraisal of the defence programme last year he found that, despite meeting our commitments to NATO to increase the United Kingdom's spending on defence by 3 per cent. in real terms each year, the resources available were unfortunately insufficient to implement all our forward plans and aspirations. If we were to live within our means, some programme adjustments were unavoidable and, after due consideration, my right hon. Friend concluded that we were unable to afford any direct and early replacement for the Jaguar force in Germany and at home. His decision to that effect was published last June in the White Paper on the defence programme, Cmnd. 8288, which went on to say that we


were, however, continuing work and discussion with potential partners on future combat aircraft and that possibilities included both advanced VSTOL and Tornado-related developments. The White Paper also made the point that we would have particular regard to collaborative opportunities and to export markets, as well as to the long-term capability of the British aircraft industry.
In accordance with the White Paper decision, no further Government-funded studies on the Jaguar replacement have been authorised. It is envisaged, however, that Royal Air Force and Government officials will keep in touch with their counterparts in France and Germany on the possibility of a collaborative development of a combat aircraft.
That, then, is the background. I return to the P 110. This project has been conceived by industry in anticipation of future requirements. It is being pursued by industry on a private venture basis as a means of meeting what they see as requirements both of the United Kingdom and of overseas Governments. It also sees it as a means of employing to best advantage the skills and resources of the industry in the years ahead and as work on the Tornado runs down. Among the companies involved are British Aerospace, Rolls-Royce, Lucas Aerospace, Smiths Industries, Marconi and Dowty, as well as Ferranti, in which my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West has his particular constituency interest.
Industry sees this aircraft as the third member of a family of combat aircraft based on the Tornado technology but embodying significant technological advances beyond the Tornado. It is, I understand, planned as a twin-engined single-seat fighter to be powered by an improved version of the Turbo Union RB199 engine fitted in the Tornado. I understand also that some 40 per cent. of the P110's airframe, including the wings, are planned to be made of carbon fibre composite materials and that the aircraft is to have a "fly-by-wire" active controls system. In both these respects, the project would benefit from the advances made in both carbon fibre composites and fly-by-wire technology at BAe's Warton Division resulting from technology demonstrator programmes funded primarily by the Ministry of Defence.
BAe has made it clear that if full-scale development of the P110 is to take place it will need a partner or major customer by the end of 1982 or early 1983. It judges that the build-up of investment which is needed beyond that time is such that it must identify a launch aid partner if the project is to continue on its present schedule. This is

necessary if the P110 is to match the delivery time scale of other aircraft such as the French Mirage 4000 which is competing in the same export markets.
The P110 has been designed primarily for the air defence role, although it could have a capability in other roles. BAe has approached a number of other countries which have shown interest in the project, with a view to their sharing the costs of a joint development programme. In its efforts to sell the P110 BAe has, as my hon. Friend knows from our correspondence, been assisted by the sales organisation of the Ministry of Defence and by other Government representatives serving in certain countries.
I readily understand industry's concern that there should be a commitment by the Ministry of Defence to purchase the P110 for the Royal Air Force and its judgment that this would enhance enormously its prospects of selling the aircraft to foreign customers. However, although it is true that the P110's design might have enabled it to meet many of the requirements of AST 403, the Jaguar replacement, last summer's White Paper on the defence programme made it clear, as I mentioned earlier, that we shall not be able to afford any direct and early replacement for the Jaguar force. That position has not changed.
I should also make the point that a Tornado-related development such as P110 is only one of the possible ways of meeting the Royal Air Force's longer-term requirement for combat aircraft. As last summer's White Paper foreshadowed, we are also considering the possibility of advanced VSTOL aircraft which would capitalise on the successful Harrier concept.
In concluding, I emphasise that no decisions have yet been taken on the next generation of combat aircraft for the Royal Air Force. The options set out in last June's White Paper remain open. Our studies are still at an early stage and we shall, of course, have regard not only to meeting the operational requirements of the Royal Air Force but also to the needs of the aerospace industry in this country. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is very conscious of the sort of problem that my hon. Friend has described. We understand the anxieties which the industry feels about the future, and we shall take them fully into account in reaching a decision on future combat aircraft. These are extremely important issues. We shall need to weigh them very carefully, with full regard to the constraints of the defence budget. Meanwhile, we are continuing to assist BAe's endeavours to sell the P110 in the export market.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty minutes past Twelve o'clock.